Ion drive for aircraft imminent.

Cars spend a fair amount of time not driving, too. So?

Reply to
krw
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Sounds like 4000lbs.

Reply to
krw

Zero using baloons:

If you don't like the baloons: "4 Real Flying Cars That Actually Fly" "10 Amazing Flying Cars You Won't Believe"

Sorry. I couldn't find any numbers on gas mileage. A Cessna 150 gets 15 to 22 miles/gallon. My 2001 Subaru Forester gets about 21 miles/gallon. The difference is wasted fuel while idling, stop-n-go traffic, and an engine that's not optimized for operating in a narrow rpm range.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Not at close to full output power.

--
Jim Pennino
Reply to
jimp

Depends on what is generating the lift.

0 for a balloon, something more for other types of machines.
--
Jim Pennino
Reply to
jimp

High performance gliders can have glide ratio's of up to 70:1

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so the answer might be 57. The example glider

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only weights 1875 lbs, and might not scale up.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

All propulsion systems are necessarily overly expensive when flying compared to on-ground travel. There's no getting round that.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

What is the Isp?

Reply to
Robert Baer

OK..but I'm NOT wearing a tie on one of those things!

George H.

Reply to
George Herold

that's a magic safety tie, he always wears that so it must be :)

-Lasse

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

I'll see your ion drive and raise you one baloney drive. It's very efficient, just plug it into the internet and it recharges.

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>
Reply to
Bill Martin

Helicopters don't have a throttle or an "off" button?

Reply to
krw

Depends how you calculate. I've shipped furniture coast-to-coast by air freight for less than it would have cost by truck. Salaries, equipment utilization, fuel, etc.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Reply to
Phil Hobbs

Yes, but only to be used at the right altitude.

Reply to
Sjouke Burry

Of course they do but your response shows you know absolutely nothing about helicopters.

When a helicopter is hovering, the engine(s) are at close to full power output without going anywhere.

When a car is not moving, the engine is at idle.

Get it now?

And it still has nothing to do with flying cars.

--
Jim Pennino
Reply to
jimp

What good is ion drive? If you want to get from here to there, you need an energy source sufficient to accelerate/maintain/decelerate some mass. Doesn't matter how you do it, you can't get there on less energy, given current physics.

If you're in space with low friction losses, you can use an electric field to accelerate a small mass to high velocity to generate thrust. But you still have to have the energy source to drive it. If you're not in a hurry and are close to a star, no problem.

A terrestrial vehicle like a flying car does not sound well suited to ion drive. Just lifting it off the ground with anything resembling thrust is a deal breaker in so many ways.

Reply to
mike

They do. It's called a Harrier.

Reply to
John S

I think he refers to the fact that a rotorcraft uses ~70% of its available power just to hover -- i.e., before it's even moving forward, or carrying any cargo beyond its own weight, it's starting to approach max output. In addition, current torque monitoring systems for rotorcraft are only accurate to about +/- 5%, which means that in practice the pilot is going to have to be real cautious about exceeding

95% output. A heavily loaded rotorcraft will be limited to a VERY small percentage of its power output for actually moving anywhere.
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                      Sea Wasp 
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Reply to
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)

The nanotubes may become longer lasting by using bundles of nanotubes:

Arrays of Bundles of Carbon Nanotubes as Field Emitters. NASA?s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California Thursday, 01 February 2007 Area-averaged current densities exceed those of arrays of single nanotubes. "Experiments have shown that with suitable choices of critical dimensions, planar arrays of bundles of carbon nanotubes (see figure) can serve as high-current-density field emitter (cold-cathode) electron sources. Whereas some hot-cathode electron sources must be operated at supply potentials of thousands of volts, these cold-cathode sources generate comparable current densities when operated at tens of volts. Consequently, arrays of bundles of carbon nanotubes might prove useful as cold-cathode sources in miniature, lightweight electron-beam devices (e.g., nanoklystrons) soon to be developed."

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And in any case you don't need to use the nanowires as electron emitters to get the ionization effect. You get it as well from the intense electric fields generated by wires at the nanoscale in accordance with Peek's Law:

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Note it may be the nanoscale wires might not even need to be carbon nanotubes. According to Peek's Law simply being at nanoscale diameters is sufficient to generate the intense fields. Since there is much research ongoing with metallic nanowires they as well could be used to confirm the better efficiency of ionic propulsion with wires at the nanoscale.

In regards to getting longer nanotubes by tying them together, that has already been confirmed experimentally by a team at Rice University, the leading center for nanotechnology in the U.S. That research was published in Nature Materials, the associated journal in materials science to Nature, the leading science journal in the world. The Rice team was able to show simply tying nanotubes together produced longer nanotubes of greater current capacity than the copper or aluminum wires now in use and at lighter weight.

About the power requirements, the ionic propulsion with ionizing wires, called corona wires, at the nanoscale has improved power-to-thrust ratio. Then the needed power can be supplied by onboard batteries.

Bob Clark

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, nanotechnology can now fulfill its potential to revolutionize

21st-century technology, from the space elevator, to private, orbital launchers, to 'flying cars'. This crowdfunding campaign is to prove it:

Nanotech: from air to space. https://www.>Nanotechnology makes possible an "ion drive" for air vehicles analogous to

Post again when Chevy dealerships are selling flying cars.

Carbon nanotubes are the idiotic craze of the day, and are pretty much useless so far. As electron or ion emitters, they quickly destroy themselves.

And they still don't violate conservation of energy. Where is all the zero-pollution power going to come from?

That's hilarious, tying tiny nanotubes together with fancy knots.

The nanotech bubble popped roughly 10 years ago. I was involved with academics and inventors and slimy VCs all hoping to cash in on the upside of the Next Big Thing.

--
John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
Reply to
Robert Clark

Good question. You can make one of these EHD devices yourself, commonly called "lifters", to test this. Do a web search on: "lifters" and "power supply" for the many explanations online for how to make them. My guess is since it's the intense electric fields that is creating the ionization they will still work in high humidity or rain. Note also the EHD effect also works with liquids.

Bob Clark

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, nanotechnology can now fulfill its potential to revolutionize

21st-century technology, from the space elevator, to private, orbital launchers, to 'flying cars'. This crowdfunding campaign is to prove it:

Nanotech: from air to space. https://www.> Nanotechnology makes possible an "ion drive" for air vehicles analogous to

Do they work when it's raining / in humid environments?

Michael

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Reply to
Robert Clark

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