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Old August 17th 05, 05:25 AM
Happy Dog
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"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