Airliners have specific periods for which their jet engines must be warmed up before they can take off. This can involve generating significant quantities of hot exhaust for minutes at a time.
Today’s invention is a simple tool to help airlines recoup some of the wasted energy.
An airport tractor would be fitted with two large heat exchanger coils. These would be separable laterally in order to line up with the exhaust from two jets on an airliner’s wing. The exhaust flow would pass through the central duct in each, allowing for heat transfer but providing minimal reaction force on the plane.
Two such tractors could be driven up to a four engine jet in order to extract some of the heat which would otherwise warm the atmosphere over the tarmac. The energy could be used to heat water for use in the terminal building.
