The Love to Weight Ratio

Being a pilot and a bit of a geek, when our six-pound Chihuahua got really sick this week and I got choked up at the thought of losing her, I couldn't help ruminating on the idea of a love to weight ratio. It just popped into my head. I'll call it the LWR from here on out.

Airplanes have what is called a thrust to weight ratio. It's a comparison of the thrust provided by the engines versus the weight of the airplane. The T-38, for example, is a supersonic, twin-engine, afterburning, sexy little trainer used by the USAF and NASA. The total thrust is in the neighborhood of 7,700 pounds. The total weight is about 12,000 pounds. That makes its thrust to weight ratio something less than 1.0. While it cannot accelerate while going straight up, since you need better than a 1.0 ratio for that, it was quite the screamer in its day, setting four time-to-climb records in the 1960's.

By contrast, today's F-22 produces an amazing 70,000 pounds of thrust, while weighing anywhere from about 30k pounds to 60k pounds or so. Even at max gross weight, then, its thrust to weight ratio is better than 1.0. To give you some idea of what that means, think of taking off in your airliner and getting to cruise altitude. It generally takes about twenty-five minutes or so. The T-38 could probably get there in less than two minutes with a thrust-to-weight ratio less than 1.0. The F-22 has double that kind of climb performance. Think of that. And without afterburner. Amazing.

All of which is to give you an idea of where I got the idea of the whole LWR thing. Here's this little pooch that weighs just about six pounds. She's about the size of one of my shoes, but with little spindly legs and cute little feet. It simply amazes me how full grown humans can so completely and helplessly adore such a tiny little creature. Six pounds of pooch versus tons of love. What kind of LWR does that give you?