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What happens when it mechanically fails and doesn't disconnect? Have a 2 mile long cable being drug behind a 200mph flying machine? That seems quite dangerous

• tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  What happens when the plane mechanically fails? Having 600 tons of metal raining down on a population sounds quite dangerous.
  • Alupis 7y ago
    > What happens when the plane mechanically fails? Having 600 tons of metal raining down on a population sounds quite dangerous Simply put, that's just not how aviation works. Mechanical failures aren't uncommon in aviation, but for an aircraft to not be able to divert and return to the ground, a lot has to go wrong all at once. It's infinitesimally rare for all systems to fail at once on an airliner. There simply isn't a problem of airliners dropping out of the sky, ever. They're incredibly robust machines. However, with your idea, we'd be relying on a single system to prevent catastrophic failure. That's a massive step backwards for aviation. That doesn't even begin covering the problems with delivering enough electricity over this cable to power an airliner at takeoff... That cable would need to be a very thick gauge of wire and very heavy - causing all sorts of it's own problems.
    • tonyedgecombe 7y ago
      You can have your doubts but I'm off to the patent office tomorrow.