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Airbus fits electric truck with airliner cockpit to study safer taxiing

Paris: Airbus is showing off an unusual vehicle - a truck fitted with basic A350 airliner controls - that it hopes can demonstrate how automated taxiing will make airports safer as concern grows over a spate of jetliners colliding on the ground. The converted electric truck at VivaTech, Europe's biggest technology event, can be driven normally, or the aircraft systems can be given control.

Paris: Airbus is showing off an unusual vehicle - a truck fitted with basic A350 airliner controls - that it hopes can demonstrate how automated taxiing will make airports safer as concern grows over a spate of jetliners colliding on the ground. Airbus is at pains to avoid linking the research to specific accidents, but comparisons with January's fiery Tokyo collision between a landing A350 and a coast guard plane that appeared to have strayed onto the runway are inevitable. Airbus hopes the vehicle crawling through a side alley of the Paris exhibition centre hosting the tech billionaires and startups of VivaTech shows how automation can help safely squeeze $100-million-plus jets through increasingly congested airports.

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