Research Poll: Public Support for a Nuclear Powered Aeroplane

[Sinizter]

Hell no. I do not want to be anywhere near that close to a nuclear reactor of any kind.

[handscombmp]

There's also an isue with redundancy. With a single reactor, the airplane could be considered to be 'Single Engine' which, among other things, would not be permitted under part 121 regulations for air carriers in the USA.

That true but i'd think that they'd probaly come up with some new rules about it.
To Really make a descion about it i'd have to see more info about it like weight, how easy it is to operate (being a pilot i suddenly don't want to learn how to operate a nuclear powerstation) and speed

[sleepyhead]

Being a pilot you don't need to know everything about how the engine operates do you? As long as you know the working parameters and acceptable limits any faults will be logged in some sort of FADEC unit or hand written by the FE in the Tech Log Book. So as a pilot, irregardless of how it does the job, surely all you require to know is it's operating parameters and what to do when something abnormal occurs.

If aircraft were powered by a nuclear fission reactor of sorts, then as Teepee mentioned, there has to be some sort of redundancy system in place. Twin Engine long haul planes fulfill an ETOPs requirement so do you carry 2 nuclear reactors with one as back up?

What kind of mass is required to generate enough energy to enable, say the A380 or 747-8 off the ground? Where would you locate it due to the mass of the reactor and shielding? How would this affect CoG? The whole structural concept would have to be revised to accomodate such an idea. You could no longer apply a MToW or maximum landing weight as the weight would remain (relatively) unchanged as their is no fuel consumed.

To bring the concept of nuclear air travel to the fore, you would have to specifically design an aircraft around the powerplant.

Anyhow, I'm just ranting now. Sorry.

EDIT:
Not forgetting the ground support crew; I don't think it would take too much to further train the maintenance people on inspecting/repairing/handeling radioactive material, after all they use depleted uranium as counter-balance weights (at least in the DC10s) as well some of the more extreme airframe/structure NDI carried out.

[handscombmp]

Being a pilot you don't need to know everything about how the engine operates do you? As long as you know the working parameters and acceptable limits any faults will be logged in some sort of FADEC unit or hand written by the FE in the Tech Log Book. So as a pilot, irregardless of how it does the job, surely all you require to know is it's operating parameters and what to do when something abnormal occurs.

I wouldn't have to know everything but to shut one down safely and stuff like that. any how just thing how many people there are in a nuclear powerstation. But now when i think about it, there nuclear subs and warships and they get on ok without have a fleet of nuclear techs. Any way if you were to have a nuclear plane i wouldn't be suprised if the flight enginer made a come back.

[sleepyhead]

LoL. The good old FE...technology has replaced him (or her). I worded mypost badly and re-reading it sound like I was having a go at you. My bad. Sorry.

I was illustrating the point that pilots don't need to be Part 66 B1/B2 LAE with type rating to fly; only the training required of them to operate the equipment in a safe and controlled manner and also corrective actions required, if needed, when operational parameters are exceeded.

[TeePee]

We know that larger reactors are more efficient than smaller ones.

So if it's more expensive to run an aircraft carrier on a nuclear reactor than on diesel turbines, then we can be sure it would be more expensive to run a smaller reactor in an airplane than the equivalent turbines.

The advantage for the aircraft carrier is esentially unlimited range, without dependency on land facilities. What would be the advantage for an airliner?

[sleepyhead]

None stop around the world trips?

Financially, I have no knowledge on total operating costs for any airliner and I also have no knowledge of the running costs for a reactor.

You'd have to balance the running costs for a normal aircraft and (an identical or similar) nuclear powered aircraft, taking into account MRO costs, aircraft purchasing/leasing costs, supporting ground crew, landing fees and whatever else I have missed out.

In the long term it may end up beneficial to have a nuclear reactor powered aircraft as you would no longer be paying the cost of fuel, i don't know, I'm no accountant or cost analyst.

All i am sure of is you'd spend alot of time and money retro-fitting or designing a new aircraft to accomodate such power sources and then you'd be stuck at getting it approved under Civilian aircraft authority.

[Rave]

I was always under the impresion that a nuclear powered bomber had already flown- in the story that has just come back from the depths of my subconscious mind, shielding the reactor was impossible so they gave all the crew lead lined suits instead.

Having just had a bit of a google around, I can find no evidence at all for this having happened, so I'm forced to conclude that it was a figment of my drunken imagination, or an internet conspiracy theory, or most likely, a combination of the two.

Anyway, as someone who is not particularly concerned about nuclear contamination, I still think that nuclear planes would be unsafe and uneconomical. I think that in the future when fossil fuels become so expensive as to render air travel prohibitively costly, we'll all have to get used to travelling taking longer than we're used to. Now that the largest cruise ships are about 60% larger in tonnage terms than a Nimitz-class carrier there's no good reason why they can't be nuclear powered. We'll just have to adjust to a trip to the states taking 4 or 5 days rather than 10 hours.

[JK Ferret]

I don't think it'll ever be 'safe' in the vast majority of people' minds, no matter how well worded an argument was for it. I don't really see the major airliners taking to this idea either, as has been stated, it's of no real advantage to them even if possible.

Besides, I don't like flying in any aircraft that I couldn't control myself, so I'm limited to things like the RAF's Vigilante glider

[TeePee]

A vigilant is harder to fly than a 777.

[JK Ferret]

Really? Lucky me then Shame I never finished my gliding scholarship

But I bet flying a 777 like a Vigilante would cause a few upset(stomach)s