Just explain the differences in SIMPLE words??

Direct current and alternating current?middle school science, from where I am sitting.Anyway basically the current is electrons floating in a uniformed manner, in alternating current they flow back and forth, in direct current they flow in one specific direction only.

Direct current and alternating current?middle school science, from where I am sitting.Anyway basically the current is electrons floating in a uniformed manner, in alternating current they flow back and forth, in direct current they flow in one specific direction only.

LOL Never learned that in middle school. Although I am learning this stuff in college as its my major lol

yeah well I write from where I am sitting. I understand that school curriculums are way different all over the world. Maybe I could have phrased myself better.

Direct current and alternating current?middle school science, from where I am sitting.Anyway basically the current is electrons floating in a uniformed flow back and forth, in direct current they flow in one specific direction only.

Considering that i went in a crappy middle school lost in the country and i just started high school, it's already a lucky tning that i can speak a decent english. Anyway, thanks a lot!!

I fly the EMB-145 for an airline in the US and I asked this very question to one of my ground school instructors. I don't have a very mechanical mind and I'm certainly far from being an engineer, so I was curious to know why the Embraer uses a predominantly DC electrical system while other airplanes (CRJ, etc) use a predominantly AC system. He said that, in simple terms, the capacity of DC is greater than AC so that's why Embraer decided to use a DC system. I've talked to numerous pilots and they said that Embraer got the design right because while our electrical system is very complicated, from a pilot standpoint there's not much we need to deal with in the cockpit. Our plane is very automated and uses a lot of electrical power, and even the flaps on the Embraer are electric, not hydraulic. We use a small amount of AC power for the avionics, but we never touch the buttons for that system unless it's an emergency. I hope this isn't too hard to understand, but in a nutshell DC power is used for large power draws and AC is for components that don't need such a high capacity (avionics). I hope it helps!

In modern systems the differences are less, but in the old days AC was a lot easier to generate than DC so they went to 400 cycle on aircraft (instead of 60/50 at home) to keep transformers smaller. Lot's of things going on here, anyway, to keep it short most electrial loads work with DC best, bet you will see more and more DC now that it those generators are light weight and make clean power without mechanical commutators and transformers are only found on the utility grid.

Simple words: AC=Rock n' DC=roll :(