Talk:Thrust-to-weight ratio

message: "for launch from the Earth's surface, for launch from the Moon it only needs to be more than 0.1654"
Thrust to WEIGHT ratio always need to be larger than unity. Moon's surface gravity 1/6 of Earth, but you still need 1N thrust to counter 1N of gravitation attraction. I think the editor is mixing up mass and weight.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.149.87.75 (talk) 10:47, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: On the Moon

message: Wiki aircraft performance entries show the following in the thrust/weight: data 'F100 0.898; F110 1.095', but this article in no way explains what this meant!--Mrg3105 10:54, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  aircraft performance entries 

message: The first and last paragraphs of the first section are contradictory: the first says the ratio is pegged to Earth's surface gravity; the last says it is not.  —Fleminra 06:40, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, it's the other way around.  Still a contradiction.   It results from the fictionalizing of the concept to pretend that it really is a dimensionless ratio, when it is not. There is no acceleration of gravity involved in these calculations, but rather you need either the pretense that pounds-force will cancel out pounds (or equivalently, kilograms-force will cancel out kilograms), or you need to add a gratuitous fudge factor to the calculations, something not called for by the physics involved: the standard acceleration of gravity (a concept of metrology, not of physics).  Gene Nygaard (talk) 18:12, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: For aircraft it doesn't matter much, since gravity doesn't vary. For rockets the standard seems to be to peg the local gravity to g0. Sutton (7th edition pg 442) says that: thrust-to-weight ratio F/Wg is a dimensionless parameter that is identical to the acceleration of the rocket propulsion system (expressid in muliples of g0) if it could fly by itself in a gravity free vacuum (and they define Wg to be loaded weight at sea-level.)- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 18:30, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

text: Actually, the last paragraph says "actual performance will often be affected by … local gravitational field strength," not that T/W is affected by local gravitational field strength, so never mind.  —Fleminra (talk) 21:29, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: local gravitational field strength

message: Some user seems to be trying to add a table of data that they made in a spreadsheet to the article in jpg form. This form of data would be very difficult to change/expand/correct, and is completely out of keeping with the wikipedia's style.
Given that, I'm planning to remove it each time it appears.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 16:29, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The table of data appears to be based on information sourced from www.fighterplanes.tk.  This website contains many pages and it is not sufficient to cite the home page and hope this will constitute adequate verifiability of the data.  Dolphin51 (talk) 22:24, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  JPG tabular data 

message: Anyone care to clarify the "It is a true ratio" line in the Calculation heading means?  I can find no comparable use through searching around.  As such, barring a link / further explanation in the article, I recommend its removal. Groxx (talk) 22:24, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I changed it to "It is a dimensionless quantity.", it seems that was meant.--Patrick (talk) 00:23, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Calculation : True Ratio 

message: This article refers to weight as a force in the definition but as a mass in the tables. Which is it?--208.54.14.122 (talk) 04:34, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thrust and weight are both forces. The weight of an aircraft or engine whose mass is known is easily calculated by multiplying the mass by the acceleration due to gravity. See the example given under the heading “ Examples”. Dolphin (t) 07:59, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Weight

message: I think it would be interesting to have examples of very low ratio aircraft such as ultralights and early models such as the Wright Flyer. How low can the ratio be and still have a useful aircraft? Binksternet (talk) 18:46, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be a glider. Zero!- Sheer Incompetence (talk) Now with added dubiosity! 20:02, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

text: For taking off at sea level and climbing without thermals... Binksternet (talk) 20:09, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Powered glider. The L/D ratio is about 70, and they add minimal engine, so T/W would be about 1/70.- Sheer Incompetence (talk) Now with added dubiosity! 21:13, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Seventy is excessive.  Wikipedia states that the Fournier RF-5 and Scheibe Falke motor gliders both have L/D ratio of 22:1.  The Schempp-Hirth Nimbus-2 has a much higher aspect ratio of 28.6 and its L/D ratio is 47.5.  Perhaps the best-performing powered sailplane in commercial production at present is the Schempp-Hirth Nimbus-4M with a wingspan of 26.5m and aspect ratio of 38.8.  Its L/D ratio is stated to be 60:1.  The Nimbus-4M has a Rotax engine of 33kW power, so not a lot of excess thrust. Dolphin (t) 21:59, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Low power examples

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: Thrust to weight for aircraft are shown for the entire vehicle, including fuel. For example take-off at sea level at max weight. This seems a very useful measurement.
But for spacecraft, the thrust-to-weight figures are for the bare engine. Since the fuel type provides a specific impulse, what is the point of comparing sea level thrust if you don't include the rest of the launch vehicle and its fuel required to get to a particular trajectory?
I can't get my head around how thrust-to-weight provides any insight for a spacecraft, once you know specific impulse.
DouglasHeld (talk) 19:10, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is the significance of thrust to weight in a bare engine? 

message: for example this one 85.193.247.94 (talk) 23:41, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  A picture is worth a thousand words 

message: The article of the F-35 states "Thrust/weight: 0.87 at gross weight (1.07 at loaded weight with 50% internal fuel)", that's different than what the table in this article here says. Something is not right in both. Shouldn't the TWR be higher if the plane is empty and go down to more load? Why 0.87 at gross weight of 16t and more at "loaded weight", whatever that is, probably not "max take-off weight". The figures in the table here don't fit to this, TWR seems way too low. Also where is the 177kN figure from? The F-35 articles speaks of a 125kN engine, 191kN with afterburner.  --OBrian (talk) 12:26, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  F-35