Summary: Engineers have built and flown the first-ever plane with no moving parts. Instead of propellers or turbines, the light aircraft is powered by an 'ionic wind' -- a silent but mighty flow of ions that is produced aboard the plane, and that generates enough thrust to propel the plane over a sustained, steady flight.
Seems we can contribute some 'tronics here?
Bit fun thing, do not expect a lot of of those in the sky soon... Flies, mosquitos shorting the HV wires ? LOL Rain?
The battery needs to be in or part of the structure. The issues you mention are avoidable with weather forecasting & giving each wire its own power co ntrol. But I can't see such planes ever doing much more than acting as came ra drones, the output from ionic wind is too miniscule to even deal with ge ntle outdoor wind.
The inverter to produce the 40kV might be a bit interesting.
The picture doesn't indicated the dimensions, but it looks as if there might be 10cm between the thin negative wires at the front of the wind generator and the thicker positive wires at the back.
That would be an elongated fly or mosquito. Some dragonflies get that big ...
Would it be a problem? Teflon insulators wouldn't build up a continuous film of water.
It might work better in ink-jet printer mode ...
It might work better in ink-jet printer mode ...
If it enough of it accumulated on the trailing electrode, it could be a problem.
But jet engines occasionally ingest ducks, swans and geese - it's a general aviation problem.
Jan is easily amused.
People have been proposing using ionic wind to drive aircraft for as long as I can remember, but - as the article mentions - it was always written off as impracticable. It now seems to be merely impractical.
The front wires have to be thin enough to generate a corona discharge - the local field strength has to hit about 3MV/metre.
Sharp spikes on heavier wire might be more mechanically robust. Making them cheaply might be tricky.
That's not first-ever, it's an old science fair project. The lift/weight ratio is miserable, the efficiency is terrible, and it's worse than a dirigible as regards breezes wrecking it.
"Mighty flow of ions" ? Ludicrous.
It probably makes a lot of ozone and maybe nitrous nasties.
More press release nonsense.
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John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc trk
jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Na,. yea, the professor has been at it all its life if I read correctly. It does remind me a bit of that wireless energy transfer MIT had some years ago, they sold the patent to Boeing IIRC, I commented at the time that they never get that certified, it would fry all sorts of things like radios etc, it has been quiet about that,. This afternoon it came to me that for the MIT flying thing to get FCC (in US FCC does that no?) certification they will have to explain that a flying spark-gap radio transmitter is no threat to
Spark gaps radiate over a very wide band, it would be quiet in sound, but very noisy in radio. So maybe Boeing likes to buy the patent ;-)? Anyways it is fun, people need to play. spend part of the day trying to add latest debian to my laptop, took 4 tries before it worked, I mean without destroying all Linux distros on the other partitions...
The subtitle says, "The silent, lightweight aircraft doesn't depend on fossil fuels or batteries." The second sentence of the first paragraph says, "Batteries in the fuselage (tan compartment in front of plane) supply voltage..." Interesting.
Dirigibles weren't fast, so winds that approached their cruising speed crea ted problems, but breezes - as such - weren't a problem. Erratic gusts are problem for conventional aircraft too.
Why? The ions collide with neutral air molecules and move them along. The f low rates and volumes achieved aren't huge, but they were clearly mighty en ough to serve the purpose.
As did the original Xerox machines, that used a corona discharge to charge up the selenium-coated drum. Modern gas-powered cars are bad too, but engin eered to minimise emitted nasties. May be the rear electrodes would have to be coated with a catalytic layer.
True, up to a point. The gadget does work, even if it doesn't look all that useful.
Well the military isn't going to buy them. If yo can't get in a couple of cases of bombs (LOL) they just ain't worth shit.
I heard about ion propulsion years ago, there were reasons it is not viable. Maybe if you get one big enough to be useful everybody around will be brown.
Are you really that ignorant? As with many potential applications of airplanes, they can fly far above all that. Otherwise rain is certainly an issue but birds, flys??? Really? You've never seen a bug zapper?
Actually, this plane might just fly slowly enough that birds could avoid it! Or they may crash it by perching on one wing and knocking it off balance, lol!
of cases of bombs (LOL) they just ain't worth shit.
able. Maybe if you get one big enough to be useful everybody around will be brown.
ones. I expect this would be right up their alley.
I wonder. Probably the only thing it could usefully do is operate a camera. Being ultralight it's not going to be picked up on radar, but would have t o transmit to be useful. A very slow moving fragile transmitting target... probably would work over friendly civilian areas, not so sure about anywher e else. Which might make it more interest to police, if it ever gets robust enough to cope with wind. No way will it fly high, it's real windy up ther e.
BTW I have an insect killer light it consists of some voltage multiplier from the mains and close wound wires, it has caught many many mosquitos and flies. It sparks every time it does that.
We have birds here, I think the English word is 'swallows'? anyways those fly beak wide open through the mosquito swarms, easy food. So does my drone. See the link?
e of cases of bombs (LOL) they just ain't worth shit.
viable. Maybe if you get one big enough to be useful everybody around will be brown.
drones. I expect this would be right up their alley.
a. Being ultralight it's not going to be picked up on radar, but would have to transmit to be useful. A very slow moving fragile transmitting target.. . probably would work over friendly civilian areas, not so sure about anywh ere else. Which might make it more interest to police, if it ever gets robu st enough to cope with wind. No way will it fly high, it's real windy up th ere.
The craft is not sensitive to wind, wind shear maybe, but nothing cares abo ut the wind itself unless it is tethered or is taking off/landing.
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