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0 pointsnradov8y ago0 comments

You're not seeing the whole picture. Airliners don't routinely dump fuel during normal operations. However, if there's an emergency and the pilots decide to divert they will often dump fuel (if possible) or simply fly in circles to burn off enough to bring the airplane down to a safe landing weight. Safety isn't just a matter of preventing the landing gear from collapsing. A higher weight means a higher landing speed due to stall limits and thus a longer stopping distance and greater risk of brake failure or runway overrun.

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logicallee8y ago

But we're not actually talking about emergencies here at all, but rather "by-design" in which nothing is wrong. And a future design at that!

I hope you can see why I am skeptical that a future landing gear for electric airplanes would not be able to support the fully loaded landing weight, which is not reduced as the batteries are depleted.

The idea that landing gears just "can't" support all that weight seems silly to me. The solution can be as simple as having twelve wheels instead of six, or another set of shock absorbers, or something short of "well sorry, you'll never build a landing gear that lands safely at that weight. Can't be done."

Note that I focused on just the weight the landing gears support - your other observations can remain on-point. I just don't buy that particular argument, just about the landing gears.

dexterdog8y ago

I was specifically talking about an emergency situation. Planes don't do early landings when nothing is wrong.

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