mike regish wrote ...
How about one of those fan type generators you can lower into the
slipstream? Don't some airliners have something like that or is it just
something I saw in a movie?

mike regish


Indeed, it's the RAT or ram air turbine. Its purpose is to generate enough
power to keep the plane flying. In
some planes it pressurizes the ciritcal hydraulics too, as
well as the more important avionics.

Reminds me of the venturi tubes used to generate vacuum for the attitude
indicator in old Tiger Moths. I guess it was pretty reliable. Maybe these
things still have a place in modern airplanes alongside the computers ;-)

/ Nils