On 25 Sep 2019 16:37:36 GMT, Marland
wrote:

Recliner wrote:


What may be an issue is where running the engines
sit in the pre-flight checklists but an electric tug with a big enough
battery could power some of the aircraft systems whilst it is being
towed (there are certainly ground based APUs for those aircraft without
one). Ok - I accept that charging such things may be a problem.


The tugs would need the power of a railway locomotive. Remind me, how many
battery powered locos are in service?





Well you haven’t specified a size so we could start with the ones
traditionally used for engineering on the London Underground , don’t know
the exact number but it used to be around 29.

Something that size will be impractical for the task mentioned but smaller
examples tend to be used out of sight in numerous mines though as the UK
has relatively few such operations left most are used abroad such as those
exported by the Clayton Equipment company who have also converted diesel
locos to battery
for the Underground , they don’t horrendously large

http://www.tribe-engineering.co.uk/p...40-locomotive/


Newcastle Metro also operate a couple of battery locos which like the
London ones they can run off the normal power supply if it is available.

Glasgow subway operate a couple of battery locos for engineering work as
well.

An A380 tug would probably need as much tractive effort as a large
railway loco.