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“It still kind of works without power” was an idea that kept hydraulic actuators in planes for a long time. But now most new planes are fly-by-wire (fully elect
by snowwrestler 4y ago
“It still kind of works without power” was an idea that kept hydraulic actuators in planes for a long time. But now most new planes are fly-by-wire (fully electric). Reliably stopping an electric car in an emergency should be a solvable problem.
- NegativeLatency 4y agoIt could be solved but it might not be worth it. Planes have a whole different set of expectations on their reliability and upkeep. For example I don’t think people would be excited about an electric car with an aux power unit.
- HPsquared 4y agoThey already have an auxiliary power unit of sorts: the 12V battery.
- Kon-Peki 4y agoThe air brakes used on heavy vehicles (semi trucks, etc) have a very simple fail-safe. You need power to not brake. I.E. Air pressure is used to disengage the brakes. If you lose power/air pressure, the brakes engage and are stuck engaged.
- sbradford26 4y agoSo the fly by wire just means it is digital control to the hydraulic actuator instead of a physical cable running from the yoke or something to the actuator. They have not gotten rid of hydraulic actuators yet, they are working do that in the future but that is still a long ways out. Aircraft power systems also have significantly more redundancy so loss of control power is not a common mode failure due to have multiple dissimilar power sources.