Range (aeronautics)

Range is how far a plane can fly without having to land and refuel. Just like how your mommy's car needs gas to keep driving far on a road trip, airplanes need fuel to keep flying in the air. So, when we talk about range we are looking at how much fuel a plane can carry and how efficient it is at using that fuel to keep flying.

Imagine you have a toy plane that you want to fly across a room. If you only give it a little push, it won't go very far. But if you give it a big push and it has a powerful engine, it will fly much farther! The same thing goes for real airplanes. Large commercial planes like the ones you might see at the airport have lots of fuel tanks and big, powerful engines, so they can fly much further than other types of planes.

A plane's range can also be affected by things like its weight, weather conditions, and how many people and things are on board. Just like when you are carrying a heavy backpack and it takes more energy for you to walk, when a plane is carrying a lot of weight (like a lot of passengers or heavy cargo), it uses up more fuel and its range goes down.

So, range is all about how far a plane can fly without stopping to refuel, and it depends on factors like how much fuel the plane can carry, how efficient its engines are, and how much weight it is carrying.