Boeing's Electric Taxi Motor

BOEING CO. has tested an electric motor that could allow
commercial jets to taxi around airports without using their
engines or ground-based towing vehicles, the company said.
Boeing said its Phantom Works unit had used the nose-wheel
motor, built by Chorus Motors Plc, to move around an Air Canada
Boeing 767 jet in tests simulating various runway conditions in
June. The system could offer a glimmer of hope to U.S.
airlines, which have been scouring for ways to boost economies
amid record fuel prices, by directing pilots to taxi with
single engines, among other steps. It was unclear how soon the
motor would be ready or how much it would cost. Boeing said the
companies are working to overcome various technical issues that
had surfaced during the tests. The motors could save airlines
money by eliminating the use of airport tow tugs and boost
efficiency by running their jets less, as well as reduce
emissions, the companies said.
(Reuters 11:44 AM ET 08/01/2005)

Mo
http://q1.schwab.com/s/r?l=248&a=111...a&s=rb050 801

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So... do you still log the taxi time as PIC? : )

Ben Hallert
PP-ASEL

So... do you still log the taxi time as PIC? : )

Sure. There are no regs on what is supposed to be powering the
aircraft.

What I wonder is which weighs more - the fuel that would have been used,
or the motor that the airplane has to carry around for the whole flight.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jose" wrote in message
t...
[...]
What I wonder is which weighs more - the fuel that would have been used,
or the motor that the airplane has to carry around for the whole flight.

Doesn't really matter. The weights are probably comparable (and the fuel
may well weigh more), but more important is that the airline has to keep
buying the substance that makes up the weight of the fuel (that is, the fuel
itself), while they can buy the electric motor once (or some very small
number of times over the lifetime of the airframe).

Unless the electric motor were vastly heavier than the fuel (and that seems
unlikely), this seems like a pretty good idea to me. It wasn't clear at all
from the press release what the nature of the motor would be. Is it a
permanent installation, or is it attached to the airplane only while at the
airport? Does it have an internal battery, or does it run off of some kind
of external power source (like the airplane's APU).

I don't think the answers are all that critical to the success of the
device, but they are things I wonder about. Ironically, the link Larry
labeled as "More" simply repeats the exact text he posted. Duh. I guess
"More" just means "more formatted and other extraneous crap".

Pete

"Peter Duniho"
"Jose" wrote in message
What I wonder is which weighs more - the fuel that would have been used,
or the motor that the airplane has to carry around for the whole flight.

Doesn't really matter. The weights are probably comparable (and the fuel
may well weigh more), but more important is that the airline has to keep
buying the substance that makes up the weight of the fuel (that is, the
fuel itself), while they can buy the electric motor once (or some very
small number of times over the lifetime of the airframe).

Unless the electric motor were vastly heavier than the fuel (and that
seems unlikely), this seems like a pretty good idea to me. It wasn't
clear at all from the press release what the nature of the motor would be.
Is it a permanent installation, or is it attached to the airplane only
while at the airport? Does it have an internal battery, or does it run
off of some kind of external power source (like the airplane's APU).

How many kilowatts does a passenger jet consume to run all the other stuff
that must be powered whilst taxiing? A/C, lighting, avionics etc.
Batteries seem an unlikely solution for all that. Additional batteries plus
the power from an idling engine? Third rail?

moo

Happy Dog wrote:
How many kilowatts does a passenger jet consume to run all the other stuff
that must be powered whilst taxiing? A/C, lighting, avionics etc.
Batteries seem an unlikely solution for all that.

Yeah, I agree. Maybe the engines drive an alternator, which powers the
electric motor.

"Happy Dog" wrote in message
. ..
How many kilowatts does a passenger jet consume to run all the other stuff
that must be powered whilst taxiing? A/C, lighting, avionics etc.
Batteries seem an unlikely solution for all that. Additional batteries
plus the power from an idling engine? Third rail?

IMHO, the most likely solution is to simply run it off the APU. Or maybe
just the regular generator on the engine (which can probably produce enough
power with the engine at idle, which is still a savings over taxiing with
all but one engine shut down). Someone at Boeing was probably driving their
Prius to work and had an epiphany.

My point was simply that the press release is incredibly vague; we really
have no idea *what* this device is, how it works, or how practical it will
be. I suspect it will turn out to be a good idea, but it's hard to know
without any actual information.

Pete

It's probably some kind of ultra high voltage DC pancake motor that
would require it's own special APU to power it. It would have to
develope on the order of three to four hundred horsepower to be able to
reliably move a fully loaded jet around under all the taxi conditions
that a jet might see. In addition it would either have to be able to
spool up at a fast enough rate as to not rip the nose gear tires off
the rims on landing or be disconnected from the nose wheels on landing.
Either way it's a lot of extra crap to carry around on the aircraft as
well as go through the certification process over using a tug.

Craig C.

I wonder what the cost is gonna be in battery life over time.

Dave

In article ,
Happy Dog wrote:

How many kilowatts does a passenger jet consume to run all the other stuff
that must be powered whilst taxiing? A/C, lighting, avionics etc.
Batteries seem an unlikely solution for all that. Additional batteries plus
the power from an idling engine? Third rail?

APU.

--
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http://www.carfun.cl | I say forget about forgiving just accept.
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