Technical Paper
Examination of Aircraft Electric Wheel Drive Taxiing Concept
2008-11-11
2008-01-2860
The potential benefits offered by alternative aircraft taxiing methods without the use of the aircraft's main engines have attracted substantial interest in recent years from the aviation industry as well as the general public. Amongst the proposed aircraft taxiing methods, the electric wheel-drive concept has received the most media attention. As part of ongoing research and development into the More Electric Aircraft (MEA), a study has been conducted to examine the technical feasibility of an electric wheel-drive taxiing system using publicly available aircraft and runway coefficient data. The study shows the potential for overall mission fuel burn reductions, particularly for short haul aircraft with a relatively long taxi time.