With this new development, pushback tractors like this one would become redundant
A small electric motor could cut aircraft fuel emissions. It has been developed collaboratively by the German Aerospace Centre, Airbus and the technology division of Lufthansa.
The motor is meant to provide the energy for taxying to the runway. It could reduce the amount of emissions produced by aircraft taxying at airports by 27 per cent, according to project manager Josef Kallo.
Up to now, planes drive from the gate to take-off position using their main engines. This wastes a huge amount of energy since the engines are designed to provide the power for taking off and cruising.
Driving a plane over the airport with these engines is like operating a golf buggy with the motor of a race car; incredibly loud and wastes a lot of fuel.
Compared to the racket of airport taxiways, this development from the German Aerospace Centre and its partners would be as silent as a whisper.
To provide sufficient power to pull heavy aircraft, the engineers have built a small electric motor into the two rims of the nose wheel. The motors run on electricity from a hydrogen fuel cell.
This means the plane does not start its engine before reaching the runway. It could save up to 400 litres of kerosene per plane every day.
Additionally, with the new engine the plane could also drive in reverse. There would be no further need for the so-called pushback tractors which shove aircraft back from the departure gate.
After three years of development, the system is now ready for its first big challenge. In April the researchers plan to do the first test run at Hamburg airport with the Airbus-A320 testing machine of the German Aerospace centre.
But it could take a long time until this innovation becomes widely adopted. It was not unusual when technological changes in aviation take 10 to 15 years to be used in most new planes.
Just recently, easyJet also presented a new technology to reduce the emissions and fuel consumption.
The no-frills airline announced they were coating some of their fleet with paint containing nanoparticles. This reduces the drag of the airplane by protecting its surface against debris, reducing the overall fuel consumption of a plane by up to 2 per cent.