Speaking strictly as Devils's Advocate I'd have thought this idea a non-starter. It clearly takes several hundred horse=power to shift a big jet on the ramp, and the size of the electric motors, their oversized generators (APU) and not least the huge power transmission system would weight tons and tons, cost many millions to fit, more to maintain and probably billions to develop, and do no more than a hundred grand of tug does every day using bus technology and a pint or two of Dieso. So why not just tow the things to the runway?
Well, partly because you need all the systems - ie engines - everything - running for several minutes to get thru the checks etc, and that just happens to be the length of the average taxi - more or less. Tug to the end of the runway and you'll sit there burning fuel for 15 minutes doing checks and going nowhere...
Anyway, what Reuters reported isn't quite what the headline said...
[insert only slightly tongue-in-cheek icon here]
"...had used the nose-wheel motor, built by Gibraltar-based Chorus Motors Plc, to move around an Air Canada Boeing 767 jet in tests simulating..."
Note, they said, and I quote; "used the nose-wheel motor" ... "to move around an Air Canada Boeing 767...".
Apparently he motor was used to move around a 767, not to move a 767 around - which is a totally different proposition. Any half competent electric wheelchair (or pair of roller skates/sneakers) can do that... And any half competent student of basic English knows the difference... mangle the grammar equals mangle the meaning...Poor practice in Aerospace!
As in, " Wanted. Commode, by old lady on castors".
duh!
Last edited by Agaricus bisporus; 1st Aug 2005 at 22:55.