Is it possible to harness some of the kinetic energy and friction which is involved with landing a large airliner, and reusing that energy to stop the aircraft quicker? I believe it is, and I believe there are new materials being made now that can easily make that possible. If you have a few moments, I’d like to explain.

You see, when a large airliner lands those giant tires go from 0 to 125 miles per hour in one second, some tires spin as the aircraft flies while on approach already. Nevertheless when the aircraft touches down it puts a lot of wear and tear on the tires, and the aircraft braking system is under tremendous amount of pressure.

If we can reduce the weight of the tires by speeding up the tire prior to landing, and the tires wouldn’t need to be so heavy, or heavy duty, have to be made so strong with so much steel belts inside. These tires are extremely expensive, and quite costly to keep replacing all the time. What if there was a propeller system underneath the aircraft which would cause the tires to spin using the relative wind or ram air flow from the forward motion of the aircraft? That makes sense right? Read the rest of this entry »