Tug broken? No worries...

For some reason I kept thinking HUGE batteries... but APU DUH! I like this idea. I wonder how many millions this could save?
 
Sweet, something else to MEL!

At the crappy regional airlines you're probably right. At the legacies and other large airlines though this could save a ton of money I would imagine. I doubt Lufthansa put much investment in this before they calculated the potential fuel savings which I'm sure is several hundred million.

EDIT: Using http://www.aa.com/i18n/amrcorp/newsroom/fuel-smart.jsp they mention they save 3 million gallons annually by using single engine taxi. Eliminate another engine and you've saved potentially 9.15 million annually in fuel costs using 2011's fuel cost/gallon. Every penny counts.
 
I think that's a great idea. Probably one of the best to come along for large transports in a while. It might end up causing a few issues if the decide to use it till holding short in terms of delays, but it's still a great idea. Looks like they replaced one of the brakes with electric motors.
 
That's one hell of an interesting and cool idea. It's not just the fuel savings on the jet engines, either. You don't need a tug, for one thing. You could probably handle push-back with one less crewmember on the ground.

What I found particularly interesting was when he said, "made with mostly off-the-shelf-components." That part is critical - it keeps the cost down, and makes the maintenance/repair of these things relatively straightforward for a mech.
 
I think that it will become very common soon. With the fuel savings, less ground crew, and engine wear and tear the system would pay for itself in a few months of use. Another thing to consider is when battery technology gets a little better you could actually use regen braking to charge the system.
 
Might work in Germany. But unless you can run the packs on it, you're still going to see all the airplanes in the US sitting around with one turning while they wait for the overworked, underpaid ground crew to show up to park em. Every time I get on an A320 I chuckle to myself as I hear what I assume to be some sort of hydraulic transfer pump working hard and scaring the poop out of the pax to save a few gallons on the way to the runway, only to sit for 15 minutes at the destination because some genius at Corporate decided that it was "too expensive" to hire more rampers and/or pay them more to get a better employee.
 
I think that it will become very common soon. With the fuel savings, less ground crew, and engine wear and tear the system would pay for itself in a few months of use. Another thing to consider is when battery technology gets a little better you could actually use regen braking to charge the system.
we got it in F1 its called kers and the Prius uses it as well as just about every locomotive built for many decades. I really could see its usability though with German timetables and maintenance schedules, at AA not so much.
 
I'm surprised they don't use hydraulic motors actually. That said, this is pretty cool. The newer high power brushless motors coming out are insane. Looks like it works well. I imagine this to be the standard in a couple decades.
 
Might work in Germany. But unless you can run the packs on it, you're still going to see all the airplanes in the US sitting around with one turning while they wait for the overworked, underpaid ground crew to show up to park em. Every time I get on an A320 I chuckle to myself as I hear what I assume to be some sort of hydraulic transfer pump working hard and scaring the poop out of the pax to save a few gallons on the way to the runway, only to sit for 15 minutes at the destination because some genius at Corporate decided that it was "too expensive" to hire more rampers and/or pay them more to get a better employee.

This thing runs off the APU which I'm pretty sure should still provide enough bleed air to run the packs as well. Unless some transport aircraft can't do this?
 
Transport category aircraft have no problems whatsoever running the packs with the APU. Even stuff like the 74 and 777 are able to do it.

we got it in F1 its called kers and the Prius uses it as well as just about every locomotive built for many decades. I really could see its usability though with German timetables and maintenance schedules, at AA not so much.

That technology in the F1 cars is pretty incredible. I watched some sort of documentary about that a little while back and I was blown away.
 
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