New tug helps aircraft movement
 

An engineering company from Shoreham in West Sussex has developed a new type of vehicle which pulls aircraft from the terminal out to the runway.

A short video clip of the test vehicle.

BBC News - New tug helps aircraft movement

I don't understand why a new type of tug is needed for this.
Can't the existing tugs just take the aircraft to the runways as they are?
OK ... the pilots can't control them from the cockpit, but so what?

I wonder what the engine wear would be after just starting up the engines and immediately applying take off thrust! I would wager that putting full thrust on a cold engine would cause more wear cost than that of burning a ton or two of fuel!

You would need at least 5 minutes 'warm up', also most of the start up snags would then be 'discovered' just prior to take off whilst blocking the line up taxi way!

Quite a difficult task to get the engineers all the way out there.

Great idea, a few hurdles to overcome yet though.

Didn't Virgin Atlantic try the idea at Heathrow and abandon it almost immediately?

The controllers certainly didn't like it.

2000kg of fuel is that an accurate firgure for a 747 a340 in lhr?

In ams/cdg b737 is only 150kg rarely burn more than that

i just dont get it, its a nice idea and all that, but whats the point in inventing a tug.....thats operated by the pilot.....and having the driver sat with his arms folded, or texting blah blah. WHY DOESNT HE JUST DRIVE ??????. Presumably this is more to the "tow em to the runway before start up to save fuel" rubbish. it just a glorified TBL with a passenger

look at video @ 37secs.........that will be the grd power lead being ripped out from the a/c !!!!!!!!!!! :ok::ok::ok:

Concorde used to use 2 tons on taxi out at CDG but I doubt if many others will come close, Typical 737 = 150 KG

I would't trust that !

There was an accident in MAN many years ago with a TBL, the aircraft was being towed with engines running when more thrust was applied the nose wheel came loose and mounted the tug. Could have been much worse!

Whoops at 37 secs you are right!!!!

that would make an interesting love child:}

PA

Taxi Fuel A-340-300
 

The APU / taxi fuel on a A-340-300 according OM B is as follows:

APU-Fuel: 200 kg/hr
Taxiing: 30 kg/min.

A-330-200 and A330-300 are similar...

Typical taxi fuel (25 mins) on the 744 from T5 to 27L/R is approx 1100Kg.

They also don't mention the need for the 5 minute warm-up required prior to application of tae-off power.

Good idea in principal though, not so great in practice.

Im still lost, why is all this talk about taxiing, surely the tug is instead of the engines running.it may be controlled by the cpt, but surely the power is coming from the tug, if it wasnt, the tug wouldnt need to be such a monster. TBL are great....right up until they start to go wrong, or even silly stuf like condensation on sensors.


REF the MAN incident..why was it being towed with engines running, was it a push back/pull forward jobby

and just to clear up the 37 sec oops....its the headset lead, it isnt the ground power.........the GPU/FEGP is much thicker than that,god spot tho...still a potential knackered headset

Can't help wondering about the runway safety (i.e incursion) implication of multiple vehicles operating close to busy runways :=

Imperator 1300

TOWTEAMBASE - Yes it was pushing back then pulling forward...for a quite a long way

Don't rain on their parade, it will never happen! What would one of these gadgets cost? not a little. How many fancy pilot operated tugs would you
need to line up all the jets on the taxiway at Kennedy? And then once detached from the aircraft, you would have to construct an extra taxiway for the tug to get back for the next customer.

The only sillier idea I've ever seen are those extremely peculiar busses that somebody sold to the airport design committee at Washington Dulles....you know, the ones that go up and down and cross the active taxiways?

That'll be the Mobile Lounges and PlaneMates you're thinking of... They are very peculiar, but I kinda prefer them (from an SLF perspective!) to airbridges or airstairs. Different to the norm and all that...

Surely it would be better if ATC Ground Movements got their collective acts together to prevent unnecessarily long delays between push-backs and getting to the runway? A bit of computer power and trained brains must be cheaper and more kind to the environment than fleets of new tugs at every major airport world-wide