The more electric aircraft - assessing the benefits

The concept of the more electric aircraft (MEA), where electrical power is used for at least some of the on-board functions at present powered by hydraulics and pneumatics, has many claimed benefits and is far from new. However, almost all larger aircraft retain hydraulics and pneumatics. Over recent years there has been a great deal of interest in the MEA concept, with developments in relevant technologies and their adoption in other areas of engineering. In support of UK efforts on this and related concepts, the College of Aeronautics has been performing studies since the mid 1980s to assess the benefits of changes. This paper describes the background to these studies and the relationships between them as well as some of their findings, concluding that it is important that such assessment work should be continued in the future.