Virgin to save fuel by towing planes to runway

Delta has performed single engine taxi (on twin engine airplanes) for some time now, subject to pilot judgement that it is prudent/safe to do so.

I assume other air carriers utilize this practice also. Given the number of flights at a large airline, it can be a significant fuel saver, to say nothing of the environmental benefits.

With the continually increasing amount of avionics on the airplanes, this procedure does occaisionally cause a delay, because gremlins sometimes rear their ugly heads on “power swap.” This technical problem comes at the worst possible time, when the flight is number 4 or 5 for takeoff.

When I was on holiday this year at Atlanta and coming back from LAX to Atlanta, the Delta 757’s taxied out on 1 engine then started the other as they got to the holding point at the end of the runway, that must of conserved quite a bit too!

I have queued on several occassions in excess of 1hr (and twice in excess of 2 hours) for takeoff at JFK and can see this being useful. Our BA 777 shut down engines on a remote ish taxiway to conserve fuel so I can see JFK being able to fit such operations in as we were close to runway when we shut down, just out of the slightly flowing queue of traffic.

While in Chicago a couple of years ago we noticed traffic taking an age to take off. We timed an Iberia (IIRC) aircraft and it was queuing for well over an hour.

I can see this working at heavily congested airports where waiting times for the runways are long enough to allow a tug crew to disconnect, get out of the way and allow the flight crew to start up without causing any delay to aircraft behind.

It would make sense in Sydney with the A346’s as it’s a fair distance to the main north south departure runway and the third runway Botany Bay end

How much fuel is used from stand to runway???

Some of our JFK departure times require a taxi fuel figure of 2 Tonnes!!!!!!!!!!!! At most airports we operate from we typically burn just under a tonne prior to departure and then a few more hundred kilos at th other end taxying in.

Our Trents need a 5 minute run at idle before take off (the CFMs need 10 minutes) so that figure would not be compromised.

i read some info regarding this sometime back…

however the pilots were against the idea as they liked to know the engines were working correctly on idle and no reported faults and the taxi run confirmed all was ok…..

Hopefully wysiwyg can comment?

How much fuel is used from stand to runway??? is it more than a tow truck, running and servicing a tow truck, addtional staff, salarys, time it takes being towed compare to un-aided? (time = money!)

the way fuel prices keep going up the answer is more likley to be YES!

Electric Tow Trucks do exist AFAIK?

i read some info regarding this sometime back…

however the pilots were against the idea as they liked to know the engines were working correctly on idle and no reported faults and the taxi run confirmed all was ok…..

How much fuel is used from stand to runway??? is it more than a tow truck, running and servicing a tow truck, addtional staff, salarys, time it takes being towed compare to un-aided? (time = money!)

the way fuel prices keep going up the answer is more likley to be YES!

Perfect Vechile –

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=65194

Seem to remember this being done in the states years ago, don’t know why the practice was stopped, makes great sense. (bit of a bummer if an a/c can’t get it’s engines started though)

Would look intresting from the gate!

Can’t see ryanair doing it, because of how slow it would take. When I went with ryanair they didn’t half taxi at some speed 😮

If it can save money and fuel it’s gotta be worth a try.

well, you learn something everyday, never knew half of VS/VIR is owned by SQ