The Allplane Podcast #134: electrifying aircraft taxiing, with David Valaer (Green Taxi)

About this episode

David Valaer discusses the potential of electric motors to improve fuel efficiency during aircraft taxiing.

What if the lowest-hanging fruit in aviation decarbonization was not in the air, but waiting right in front of us, on the ground? This is what David Valaer, founder and CEO of Green Taxi Aerospace thinks. A pilot since the age of 16, David has spent his whole life surrounded by aircraft, either spending summers a bush pilot in Alaska, flying F-16 fighter jets for the US Air Force or, later on, scaling up and selling a successful helicopter tech company. A few years ago, David became intrigued by the possibilities that a new generation of electric motors offered to solve one of the issues of everyday commercial aircraft operations: the amount of fuel wasted while taxiing inefficiently through airports. Did you know that between 5 and 20% of fuel is consumed by airliners while they are on the ground? This happens because most of the time aircraft use their engines to move while on the tarmac, an incredibly wasteful process which in addition to producing unnecessary carbon emissions, also strains aircraft brakes and exposes the engines to foreign object damage. What if the taxiing could be done with electric motors instead? Green Taxi is working on a system that, David promises…

People in this episode

Guest: David Valaer

Topics covered

• aviation decarbonization
• electric aircraft technology
• fuel efficiency
• taxiing systems
• sustainability in aviation

Keywords

• aviation
• decarbonization
• fuel savings
• electric motors
• taxiing
• Green Taxi
• aircraft operations

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Green Taxi Aerospace, US Air Force

Products: electric motors

Places: Alaska

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