Firstly I did say I wasn't technical, I'm in business development. I bow to your superior operational knowledge. Having declared my association to WT, why would I want to insult anybody?
Of course it would have to return to gate with a single engine failure. I covered the hypothetical unlikelihood of a multiple engine failure blocking a taxiway. I had already detected negativity here & I was trying to answer questions before they were asked. For the first time a pilot will truly be in control of his flight from gate to gate.
I didn't detail the departure sequence. Naturally everything will have to be done safely. There will be NO blind or unsafe procedures. I fly too you know! I cannot see the point of me doing a cut & paste of the entire WT web site. If interested, DYOR. All being well, roll out is planned to commence in a couple of years or so.
It was an Airbus quote not a WT quote.
What ever any saving, no matter how small, airlines quite rightly will chase it down. For a large airline, say 100 aircraft, The cost of 1 million metric tons of fuel is serious money.
If universally adopted by major US airlines, it equates to about 320M gallons of fuel per year. It also equates to 3M metric tons of CO2 a year. Then there are the other emissions including noise. Just by modifying the take off & landing. Some while ago, single engine taxiing became fairly standard fuel saving procedure. WT takes it one step further. On the single engine taxi point, how often does an aircraft have to abort take off when the pilot discovers, on powering up the hitherto idle engine, that it has a problem? What procedure does the pilot then follow? I guess the utilisation of WT will double this frequency on a 2 engine a/c.
Of course WT is trying to make money. Lots of it. But for fair return. (Does anybody here work for free?) If WT were attempting to bash the industry, why would Boeing, Delta & Newport Aeronautical, all prestigious companies in the industry, allow their names to be publicly associated with WT? Other names will go public as & when. WT also had an article in The Times and numerous other prestigious publications. Googling WheelTug scores 540. A lot of info can be found.
Who would honestly believe an unproven gadget, could interest airlines, be allowed to be fixed to aircraft, or be allowed to fly by the FAA/CAA? In case you hadn't noticed, aircraft are already rather complicated 'gadgets'. When the Boeing test was run in Arizona, not even a single screw was permitted to be fitted to the test aircraft.
Its strange the mention of better smoke stacks. Did you read up on one of the parent companies other projects? PowerChips. Direct conversion of (waste) heat into electricity, at high efficiency. Similarly CoolChips. They will be employed on aircraft. When the R&D is complete. When the certification is complete.
The companies scientific projects each try and stand up in their own right both economically & environmentally.
And we have an iron ore mine (in development) too. Roche Bay in Canada. No we don't intend on building cast iron aircraft.
(Disclosure. I am a shareholder in all the companies mentioned)