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Thread: I'm not sure that I believe this... can it be true ??

  1. #1
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    I'm not sure that I believe this... can it be true ??

    I have just read in some vendor brochure-ware for a document management platform that the documentation for the Boeing 747 weighs more than the plane itself.
    The source is sited as The Office Systems Magazine (March 1995) but I can find nothing to corroborate it on the wonderweb, which obviously didn't exist in 1995.

    So, I've done some basic maths to see if it's possible...


    To make things simpler I am assuming that 'the documentation' is all printed on A4, but there will obviously be various media, from huge schematic diagrams to small flight manuals / checklists etc. I am excluding the inevitable binding and covers etc.

    Aaaaaaaanyway... the lightest-spec OEW (operating empty weight) 747SP is about 153,200kg.
    A single sheet of 80gsm A4 typically weighs 0.005kg, which equates to 30,640,000 sheets of A4.

    There are around 6,000,000 components in a 747, although roughly half of these are rivets/fasteners so the number of different components will be much lower... Let's assume 500,000. Each of these will include a specification document, schematics, build, implementation, test plans etc. which could easily be 10-100 pages.

    Then there will be documentation for build, maintenance, outfitting of a completed aircraft and so on, as well as flight manuals, information for airport design, taxiing, loading/unloading etc etc.

    I guess 30.6m sheets of A4 is eminently doable, and the statement could indeed be perfectly valid ?



    Maybe I should get Dr Jake to do a YouTube video about it... it's the sort of mundane b***ocks he'd appreciate

  2. #2
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    I'm not going to waste my time doing the maths, but I can easily believe it. Each component and system will have a mass of documentation for all manner of reasons - from design, to build, to commissioning, to operation, to maintenance, to life etc etc.

  3. #3
    I would have thought, easy.

    I think the number of different components would probably be lower. You have training material to consider as well. Everything will have front sheets, an index, control sheet etc etc, as well as the info. I can easily see one page of information turning into six.

    Food for thought.

  4. #4
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    I would agree, I have seen pumps manufactured for the oil industry where the documentation would far outweigh the hardware.

  5. #5
    Master
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    Passed this on to the No Such Thing As a Fish podcast email address.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by ViperStripes View Post
    Passed this on to the No Such Thing As a Fish podcast email address.

    Please let us know if they do anything with it...

  7. #7
    Master BSB's Avatar
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    Does it all fit in the pack in the glovebox?

  8. #8
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    As an ex-aircraft fitter I can add that every single maintenance task carried out on an aircraft, however minor, is documented, and the paperwork generated is kept for the life of the aircraft plus thirty years. Imagine how that builds up!

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ruggertech View Post
    As an ex-aircraft fitter I can add that every single maintenance task carried out on an aircraft, however minor, is documented, and the paperwork generated is kept for the life of the aircraft plus thirty years. Imagine how that builds up!
    All those poor trees
    "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."

    'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by BSB View Post
    Does it all fit in the pack in the glovebox?
    Yes. On an SD card

    Sent from my OnePlus 6T using Tapatalk

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by number2 View Post
    All those poor trees
    Yes, not good, not good at all 🌳.

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