Are Thrust Reversers essential safety equipment?
Just perusing through the tu-204 crash thread, I have noticed that possible thrust reverse failure has been mentioned several times. I want to know if thrust reversers are generally considered equipment that adds to the safety of an aircraft?
My own guess is that thrust reversers are not considered to be such essential equipment, on the understanding that landing distances are always calculated with thrust reversers inoperative. This means that as much as thrust reversers do help slow a plane down, if an overrun does occur and the thrust reversers were inoperative, then something else must have gone wrong for that overrun to occur?
Can anyone else lend an informed opinion?
As a corollary, assuming I am correct, and TRs are not safety equipment, why do planes have them? Are they really only there for saving money on brakepads?
Last edited by uitauoesnth; 21st Jan 2013 at 13:17.