this post was submitted on 06 May 2026
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Does at least once per flight really count as "infrequent?"
I mean, airplane brakes probably have about a 3% duty cycle (the percentage of time they're in use), so they're generally idle. For city driving, car brakes probably have about a 25% duty cycle.
If those numbers are close to accurate, that means planes are using their brakes about 10x less than cars.
BTW, I didn't pull those plane numbers directly out of my ass, but they're definitely a rough estimate. I'm figuring about 5 minutes of breaking time per flight, counting landing and during the taxi to and from the runway. And I'm assuming a 2.5 hour flight, figuring that could be close to an average flight time.
EVs, though, are mostly braking regeneratively. I see it as a personal failure each time I have to touch the physical brakes. It's to the point where rusting brake pads can be an issue.
I don’t think taxi and landing wear the brakes evenly. Landing must be something like 99% of the brake wear in <30 seconds of braking it takes for the plane to stop.