[HN Gopher] MIT engineers fly first-ever plane with no moving pa...
___________________________________________________________________
MIT engineers fly first-ever plane with no moving parts (2018)
Author : pen2l
Score : 323 points
Date : 2022-06-30 13:59 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.mit.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.mit.edu)
| WalterBright wrote:
| I bet I could make an airplane to fly 60 meters with no moving
| parts using a solid fuel rocket motor.
|
| Just take a glider and attach an Estes engine!
| culanuchachamim wrote:
| How much energy it needs to fly vs energy needed by propelled
| plane?
| djtriptych wrote:
| I've been birding over the pandemic and learning about how they
| fly. Watching them, it starts to become clear just how skilled
| and efficient they are.
|
| This tech demo is amazing, but my mind immediately compares it to
| things like the ruby-throated hummingbird migration, in which a 5
| gram bird[0] flies 500+ MILES nonstop over open water, on maybe 2
| grams of fat storage.
|
| Then they feed by hovering so accurately that they can reliably
| thread a 1/8" beak into a moving 1/4" target.
|
| They can do this directly into 20 mph headwinds [0]. Also in
| rainstorms where they are constantly getting pelted with their
| bodyweight in wet missiles every few seconds.
|
| They can also fly 30mph in level flight, which in body lengths /
| second is ~4x times faster than an SR-71.
|
| [0] US nickels weigh 5 grams, for comparison.
|
| [1] https://www.kqed.org/science/28759/what-happens-when-you-
| put...
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| The other one that amazes me is the Petrel family, that digest
| fish and process oil from them and store it in their foregut.
| This allows them to fly long distances - like, Falkland Islands
| to Svalbard kind of distances - without really stopping.
|
| The thing that gets me about it is they brew this fish oil into
| something with the energy density of *diesel* that they can
| then digest, and I have this mental picture of some kind of
| Endura-DI Shearwater flapping, clattering and smoking, all the
| way across the Atlantic in search of its breeding grounds...
| hinkley wrote:
| While hummingbirds are amazing, I think we will have to model
| out systems more closely to birds of prey. Most birds can't
| carry much extra weight, until you get to raptors and some sea
| birds.
|
| We would be after something that can carry a payload such as a
| salmon, a coconut, or a human.
| Amhurst wrote:
| Or a moose. My sister was bitten by a moose once.
| samvher wrote:
| You might enjoy this book:
| https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/simple-science-flight-revised...
|
| (I did, a lot.)
| jcims wrote:
| Cool six minute video from SmarterEveryDay on dragonfly
| flight mechanics -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxrLYv0QXa4
|
| If you don't watch the whole thing, fast forward to the slow
| mo at ~4:35. I still remember watching this for the first
| time 9 years ago...geez.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| There is a crappy pdf of this floating around that I read
| before buying this. Deffo worth it but for those who want to
| try before you buy it's worth 'binging' it.
| dragosmocrii wrote:
| Thank you, this definitely goes on my reading list!
| djtriptych wrote:
| oh wow. thanks!
| jacquesm wrote:
| Nature is lightyears ahead of tech when it comes to power
| efficiency.
| worik wrote:
| This is awesome.
|
| I am disappointed at the "MIT are boasting, nothing really to
| show" comments here.
|
| This is not Earth shattering. But it is an achievement worthy of
| our respect.
|
| This vehicle is self contained, has no external power supply,
| unlike all the other examples quoted.
|
| I am very impressed
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| I've been curious about using high heat combustion plus RF to
| create denser plasmas (ionized air) plus pulsed magnets to push
| the air. It seems impossible for earthly flight, but maybe with
| lightweight super conductors.
|
| I've also been curious about using very large-area weak ionizers
| for future zeppelins.
|
| Plasma propulsion has been used for zeppelin flight at a small
| scale. Plasmas are also used for flow control on wings and
| propellers. There doesn't seem to be much unclassified research
| in the area, though.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| Nothing earthbound that I know of, but it sounds like you are
| describing something similar to the electric propulsion
| thrusters that PhaseFour makes: https://phasefour.io/rf-
| thruster/
| api_or_ipa wrote:
| Sounds cool, but the headline is pretty bait-y. First, the
| aircraft has no control surfaces, so it's limited to flying in a
| straight line. So the headline should read "MIT engineers fly
| first-ever plane with no moving parts in propulsion". And then,
| even that's not true, since ramjets[0] have been a thing for a
| long time.
|
| 0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramjet
| beanjuice wrote:
| There is a comment from Pubpeer [0] on this research [1] if
| anyone is curious:
|
| "This is not the first flight of an ion-drive aircraft. Seversky
| was patenting and flying ionocraft in the 1960s [2], hobbyists
| have been building them for decades under the name "lifter", and
| a self-contained device that carries its own power supply was
| developed by Ethan Krauss in 2006.
|
| MIT's device may be the first ionocraft to use wings for lift,
| however. The previous devices behaved more like helicopters than
| airplanes, and did not need wings to stay aloft."
|
| [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0707-9
|
| [1]
| https://pubpeer.com/publications/020C19C112F2605CEC4B34CA320...
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GijJmIz1G7U
| CSSer wrote:
| So is this just MIT being MIT (overhyping everything) or did
| this guy and his team somehow miss all of this? Is our
| scientific knowledge really that scattered?
| aj7 wrote:
| See this 2013 article. https://news.mit.edu/2013/ionic-
| thrusters-0403 In the 2018 article this submission is based
| on, you're seeing 5 years of progress.
| Beldin wrote:
| I dunno about the findings from the 60s, but non-moving
| rotors would not keep a helicopter in the air... so at least
| some progress.
|
| It's not clear whether this thing can steer (by changing ion
| balance?), if this prototype can't but the concept might, or
| if it's forward only. If they can steer (change direction at
| will) without moving parts, that definitely sounds
| innovative.
| portyllo wrote:
| This made it to the cover of Nature with a similar headline
| [0]. I guess that they are also "overhyping everything".
|
| [0] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DsmahXYXoAAkaoI?format=jpg&na
| me=...
| lupire wrote:
| That same Nature cover has an overyhyped BS headline about
| quantum computers and cryptocurrency.
| lupire wrote:
| The OP article explains.
|
| The new device flies with no moving parts and with onboard
| power.
| scarby2 wrote:
| Well the headline i believe is technically accurate. Given
| that lifter type devices are aircraft but not aeroplanes.
|
| It's certainly an iteration rather than a complete revolution
| but seems like an important step. Certainly something like
| this would have more practical application, a basically
| silent drone that could fly over a battlefield would be a
| huge win.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| I'm not sure that the guy who patented this is considered a
| "serious" scientist. After all, he did patent a technology
| from the 60's.
|
| Otherwise, this just seems to be MIT being MIT: creating a
| trivial improvement on an old technology (in this case,
| moving the boost converter onto the airplane to avoid a
| tether wire), and publicizing the hell out of it because it's
| cool.
| tytso wrote:
| Keep in mind that the MIT Press office != the professors at
| MIT. It's actually quite common for any University's press
| office to be clueless about the research being done at the
| university, and it is their job to make as big of a splash
| as possible.
|
| This is much like the oft-cited issue that the reporters
| aren't responsible for the headlines --- that is picked by
| the editors to make as big of a splash as possible.
|
| As far as "patenting a technology from the 60's", even an
| incremental improvement on an old idea is still patentable.
| The real test is whether the patent cited the prior art,
| and you can bet that MIT Press Office didn't read the
| patent application before breathlessly sending out the
| press release.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| That is a good point. MIT professors are usually very
| aware of the context of their work and the actual
| contributions they are making. Nevertheless, the MIT
| press office is a particularly egregious organization in
| terms of its tendency to exaggerate - my dad's lab cured
| cancer about 10 times in the early 2000's if you believe
| the press releases.
|
| In this case, I'm not sure the MIT professor was aware of
| the "crackpot" invention that effectively pre-empted him.
| Many professors don't read patents (and there are lots of
| reasons why they shouldn't), and I'm not sure there was a
| paper.
|
| One thing about patents is that if an invention is
| obvious in light of other inventions, it might not be
| patentable. In this case, I'm pretty sure that this
| combination of a technology from the 60's, a boost
| converter, and a LiPo battery may be "obvious" given the
| prevalence of other drones: it is a combination of two
| past inventions that fit together naturally (a drone + a
| propulsion technology). Of course, it will take millions
| of dollars worth of arguing for someone to say either
| way.
| lupire wrote:
| Where is the "breathless" part?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Making it work on its own without a tether wire sounds like
| a substantial improvement to me.
| goatcode wrote:
| Or perhaps, as is becoming pretty ubiquitous in tech: the
| people who communicate things don't have nearly as much
| understanding as the people who do them. It was not always
| this way, but it seems the communication department in an
| organization is becoming the dumping ground for people who
| flunked out of doing the hands-on hard work but for one
| reason or another, have some support to retain them.
|
| Note: I'm not criticizing tech writing. Just what tech
| writing has become.
| vpribish wrote:
| I'm baffled that MIT's PR is so cringeworthy. They had a
| priceless, universally recognized and irreplaceable brand and
| they are just trashing it with a sustained campaign of cheap
| clickbait seemingly aimed at a technologically ignorant
| audience. WTF? WHY? The Fools!
| frognumber wrote:
| University reputations have a few decades lag. MIT did it's
| greatest work in the 20th century. It's since brought in
| people attracted to fame, power, fortune, and, again, fame.
|
| I don't think it will dig itself out again.
| pen2l wrote:
| Harvard and MIT have a lot of clout, and it's partly
| because of how incredibly massive they are. The Harvard
| network has more professors than some universities have
| pupils, (above two-thousand). Consequently just the
| _amount_ of output due to a large number of people
| working there gets it placed high up in rating indices
| and such.
|
| It's tough to say if it can keep up with its reputation.
| In some ways this phenomenon is comparable to
| gentrification: the beauty and soul of a place sometimes
| dies when the people who made that place what it is are
| displaced, like how Somerville and Berlin changed/are
| changing. It makes no sense for someone to remain
| committed in an academic career track when they're paying
| the kind of rent they do when around MIT/Harvard area
| with the income they make, so I agree with you that it's
| no longer attracting the kind of people that made MIT
| what it once was.
|
| There are some institutions, that not many know about
| yet, that I'm confident in a couple of decades everyone
| will know about like U of Copenhagen and KIT & U of
| Stuttgart in Germany, and I think some in the midwest
| (Purdue, UMich, etc.) will one day have their day to
| shine too.
| april_22 wrote:
| TU Munich is also getting really strong, they've been
| winning Elon Musk's Hyperloop for the past years I think
| nosianu wrote:
| Just an aside on the topic of German research.
|
| In Germany a lot of research is not done at the
| universities but at various institutes such as Max-
| Planck, Fraunhofer, Helmholtz, Leibniz and a lot more.
|
| General overview, research institutes being one item:
| https://www.research-in-germany.org/en/research-
| landscape.ht...
|
| Ca. 400 universities - but ca. 1,000 publicly funded
| research institutions (https://www.research-in-
| germany.org/en/research-landscape/re...).
|
| So, the ranking of the universities overall may not be
| completely comparable.
| divbzero wrote:
| MIT was established 161 years ago and Harvard was
| established 386 years ago, both young relative to
| Cambridge established 813 years ago and Oxford
| established 926 years ago. The clout of universities will
| ebb and flow, but I wouldn't bet on 100+ year
| institutions losing their ability to attract talent
| anytime soon.
| admiral33 wrote:
| I agree - network effects predate the internet after all.
| As long as good universities keep producing talented
| graduates it will be hard to undermine their reputation.
| And I don't think ambitious people being driven towards
| certain universities for clout is a negative. I say this
| as someone who went to an increasingly recognized yet
| still underdog state school. Maybe instead of discarding
| MIT's reputation a nudge in the direction of increasing
| editorial oversight can suffice. Though sensationalism
| seems to be a prerequisite for visibility these days
| tytso wrote:
| I very much doubt whether the MIT Press Office cares about
| what Hacker News thinks of their brand. What they do care
| about is what Sarah J. Student's parents think when they
| are trying to encourage their progency to attend Harvard vs
| Yale vs Stanford. And positive press is good towards
| achieving that mission, even if it is a bit click-baity.
| And since all universities are playing this game to one
| degree or another, it's asking quite a lot for one
| univesity to unilaterally agree to disarm.
|
| The other "brand" that universities care about is the their
| reputation by their professor's peers when it comes to
| hiring the best talent for their departments, and with the
| granting agencies who are deciding which research proposals
| they should fund. And here, what matters is the peer-
| reviewed publications at various academic journals and
| conferences. Whether a university's press office puts out a
| press release, which then gets mangled by various
| newspapers, doesn't really have negative or positive effect
| when it comes to how a university's research work is
| measured by the People Who Really Matter --- namely, other
| professors and the people who dispense the cash. Hacker
| News falls into neither of these two categories.
| vilhelm_s wrote:
| I'd absolutely expect the guy and his team to know about
| prior work, but the article comes from the university "news
| office". In my experience university PR releases are always
| extremely overhyped, particularly from the elite
| universities.
| closetohome wrote:
| Grad student: Look guys I built a little plane
|
| News office: MIT SUPER-SCIENTIST INVENTS AIR TRAVEL
| rcstank wrote:
| Did any of these have moving parts?
| [deleted]
| nomel wrote:
| The one I built when I was a kid didn't. I don't know of any
| designs that do.
| zxexz wrote:
| I did the same! IIRC, I went off a design from the first
| edition of Electronic Gadgets for the Evil Genius[0].
| Excellent book for the budding electronics hacker.
|
| [0] https://www.abebooks.com/signed-first-
| edition/Electronic-Gad...
| jolmg wrote:
| At least the one from 1964 in the linked YouTube video
| doesn't.
| hinkley wrote:
| Lifters typically have a tether don't they? So I think it
| depends on whether you consider the tether a moving part.
| It has to move for the craft to move...
|
| A self contained unit like the MIT one is an improvement on
| the lifter, because the ion drive is itself an improvement
| on the lifter. Or at least, a production version of one.
| What they've done is get the mass to thrust ratio below a
| threshold that allows for flight in atmosphere. That's
| definitely worth some points, but not all the points.
| nomel wrote:
| The tether is there to supply power and hold it down.
| Lifters require a power to weight ratio greater than one,
| which probably isn't possible with an on-board power
| supply. This MIT plane integrates the power supply and
| uses wing lift to reduce the required power, just as all
| planes do, and as the ionic propulsion planes did before
| (as others have linked to).
|
| This is just the MIT press department embarrassing
| themselves again, or perhaps proving that sensationalism
| is a required part of science/funding these days.
| toast0 wrote:
| > This is just the MIT press department embarrassing
| themselves again.
|
| Is the MIT press department capable of being embarrassed?
| Maybe they embarrass MIT, or at least people associated
| with MIT, but I don't think they embarrass themselves or
| they'd have changed their behavior.
| hinkley wrote:
| One is self propelled and the other is a toy that was
| abandoned 60 years ago as unworkable.
|
| That doesn't sound the same to me.
| nomel wrote:
| I think you misread. I wasn't comparing the lifter to a
| plane, I was comparing other ionic propulsion planes to
| their plane.
|
| > and as the ionic propulsion planes did before (as
| others have linked to).
| hinkley wrote:
| Ground effect planes and to a lesser extent gliders are
| cheating and we can't forget that.
|
| But taking an ion propulsion system that previously only
| worked in vacuum and making it work at sea level is not
| nothing. I haven't seen anything here to convince me it's
| pure parlor trick. It's part parlor trick for sure, but
| the sort that opens wallets.
| nomel wrote:
| > to a lesser extent gliders are cheating
|
| How were they cheating? Lifters don't use ground effect
| at all. With a proper power supply, they have a
| power/weight ratio much greater than one. Does a
| helicopter or F22 Raptor cheat to fly?
|
| > taking an ion propulsion system that previously only
| worked in vacuum
|
| You misunderstand what this is. This ionizes air and
| accelerates it towards a surface with opposite charge.
| This design will _not_ work in a vacuum, since it
| requires atmosphere [1] as a propellant. I built one of
| these thrusters when I was a kid using an old TV power
| supply. It takes some wire, aluminum foil, tens of
| thousands of volts, and a stomach for inefficiency (for
| example, the mentioned plane has a thrust of 6.25N /kW,
| the motor/prop on a drone is nearly 10x that). The only
| difference between a lifter and this is the direction of
| thrust, and the use of wings to supply lift, which all
| aircraft with a power to weight ratio less than 1.0
| necessarily do. The accomplishment, and it is impressive,
| is the engineering to make it all light/efficient, given
| the terrible efficiency of these types of motors, while
| using the advancements in the energy density of batteries
| to allow it to be integrated.
|
| > I haven't seen anything here to convince me it's pure
| parlor trick
|
| I don't understand this. I don't think anyone is saying
| it's a parlor trick. It's impressive engineering. I just
| don't think it's accurate to say it's the first [2]. 20
| years ago, there were sites with people attaching these
| to gliders (although, I can't find them anymore).
|
| 1. Theory of operation for the generation of the thrust:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion-
| propelled_aircraft#Electro...
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion-
| propelled_aircraft#cite_no...
| pen2l wrote:
| I like the video in the article quite a lot! The gentleman
| speaking in it is one of the scientists working on the project,
| and manages to convey an excitement and basic idea that the
| layman can kind of understand, as well as some fun history. Wish
| more articles could have this kind of interviews!
| c0n5pir4cy wrote:
| Older news as other people have mentioned, if you want to see how
| it works and see it flying here is a YouTube link:
| https://youtu.be/boB6qu5dcCw?t=85
| nico wrote:
| That video is 3 years old.
|
| Do you know if there's anything new with this
| project/technology?
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Here's the latest: https://newatlas.com/drones/ion-
| propulsion-drone/
| birktj wrote:
| That looks pretty impressive, but I am quite skeptical of
| the fact that this craft uses ion propulsion for any
| significant proton of its thrust. A reddit user [1]
| suggests that it uses ducted fans which I am way more
| inclined to believe. The very high pitched noise is typical
| of a high velocity propeller blowing high velocity air.
| Which seems wildly incompatible with those large grids
| where one would expect relatively low velocity air with
| very little noise. There are also four very suspicious
| tubes running along the body of the craft.
|
| [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/o6h1bc/com
| ment/...
| memco wrote:
| Interesting to see the development over the past few years
| and how theory is comparing to practice. One of the
| theorized benefits from the MIT video was quieter drones.
| This article says the ionic propulsion demoed is about 85db
| which sounds like it's just as loud as current drones.
| bentcorner wrote:
| From that page here's a video of their ionic drone:
| https://youtu.be/iihprC5Huf4
|
| Interesting that it sounds pretty much like a regular
| drone.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Ok holy shit that is on another level, the original had
| barely enough thrust to sustain flight of that almost
| lighter than air glider, this lifts up fuckin vertically
| with no moving parts.
|
| But I suspect the time it flies in the video is the time it
| takes to completely empty the batteries, as is the usual
| caveat.
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| That thing is still pretty noisy! It looks like it's
| pushing the ionized air through some kind of jet?
| jdlshore wrote:
| Are you sure that's the same group? The design is
| completely different and it appears to be a company based
| in Florida.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Ionizing the air? Couldn't that be used for hypersonic flight to
| eliminate air friction plus eliminate sonic boom?
| gorjusborg wrote:
| Is the viscosity of ionized air lower than air?
|
| My understanding is that the ionized air is used in tandem with
| electric field to accelerate plain air (non-ionized) by
| collision/friction. In other words, the ionized air is being
| used as a gaseous propeller.
| nomel wrote:
| I thought about doing this when I was playing with lifters a
| couple decades ago. The idea was that you could ionize the
| boundary layer, to make it somewhat "self repulsive", to thin
| it, to try to reduce the skin friction drag [1].
|
| I remember doing some napkin math, and the added weight/power
| would be a net loss.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_friction_drag
| mrfusion wrote:
| I believe people have found ways to reduce drag with lasers
| and microwaves so you might be on to something.
| jameshart wrote:
| Accelerating the 'plain air' isn't really necessary to the
| propulsion. Once you've accelerated the ions you've already
| accomplished a momentum transfer - if those ions then go and
| share that momentum with some non ionized air molecules
| that's their own business.
|
| I guess maybe the non ionized air acts to keep the ions
| around between the two charged grids for longer, which means
| that for each ion you create you can maybe exploit its
| attractive/repulsive force for longer?
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Look for plasma flow control for work related to this question.
| mrfusion wrote:
| It could be a new type of scram jet, right? A normal jet engine
| has to slow down supersonic air to subsonic to combust it which
| is inefficient.
| [deleted]
| joshgroban wrote:
| tom-thistime wrote:
| Ok, one moving part.
| NiceWayToDoIT wrote:
| 25 years ago there was a site Kely Net or something similar, also
| I think there is JLN labs that is still alive, there was lot of
| over-unity things, BS and scams, but I distinctively remember few
| of the technologies back then that now popping up as mainstream
| wonder ... Aluminium oxide engine, brown gas, mighty engine, ion
| lifter, metal latices fusion ... it is kind of odd how long we
| need to start exploring new tech.
| baltimore wrote:
| Can this tech be used to make a (quieter) room fan?
| learn_more wrote:
| Yes. Sharper Image sold one called the "Ionic Breeze". They
| generate ozone, which is a problem however.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_ioniser
| ohhhhhh wrote:
| First thing when i saw this. Would these airplanes just be
| flying cancer sprayers? lol
| adolph wrote:
| _Unlike turbine-powered planes, the aircraft does not depend on
| fossil fuels to fly. And unlike propeller-driven drones, the new
| design is completely silent._
|
| I suspect that the design is silent due to its low power and that
| something with enough thrust to perform some useful task would be
| louder even if the noise is that of wind only.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Indeed, at a larger scale it is loud:
|
| https://newatlas.com/drones/ion-propulsion-drone/
| tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote:
| It's extremely loud, something I didn't expect, and sounds
| very much like a high speed fan. Together with the black box
| it made me suspicious if we aren't being deceived. Two
| comments under the article think the same.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, lot to be skeptical of here.
| amelius wrote:
| Does this produce ozone?
| make3 wrote:
| I guess the question would be if this is more harmful than a
| plane of similar pulling power
| CSSer wrote:
| I can't imagine how it wouldn't.
| stym06 wrote:
| It's a 2018 piece.
| peter303 wrote:
| How does the efficiency of ion-drive compared to electric motors?
| CSSer wrote:
| I tried to find a more precise answer but technically an ion-
| drive is an electric motor, so I'm guessing it's comparable.
| The thing is that based on the couple demos I watched the
| flight seems really erratic. It makes me wonder if the fuel
| supply is somewhat inconsistent i.e. air turbulence makes the
| actual theoretical energy efficiency moot.
| tom-thistime wrote:
| An ion drive isn't really physically similar to a normal
| electric motor using an electromagnet.
| justusthane wrote:
| I'm having trouble understanding why it would necessarily be
| comparable to a traditional electric motor in efficiency.
| Whether or not it's "technically" an electric motor, it's
| operating on completely different principles. The first
| things that come to mind are there are no moving parts to
| generate friction and heat, and it requires much higher
| voltage. Wouldn't those aspects alone swing the efficiency
| one way or the other?
| brianpan wrote:
| Both use electromagnetic force to move something. They are
| much more similar to each other than combustion, which is a
| chemical reaction.
|
| https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/brushless-motor.htm
| CSSer wrote:
| It was a big guess for sure. To be clear, I don't know. I
| did find this in my search, which suggests it's not
| exponential[0], so it seems you're correct. There's a drop-
| off at higher exhaust speeds, but it's unclear to me why
| that is.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_thruster#Energy_effi
| ciency
| anonymousiam wrote:
| These were popular decades ago, and were the focus of many an
| argument over the basis in theory of how they worked. Many did
| not understand that they depend on atmosphere to operate.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzZy1Aqleno
| moron4hire wrote:
| Oh man, I was just coming here to say that.
|
| I seem to remember first hearing about these "lifters" in
| highschool, so that would have been late 1990s. But that
| recollection is based solely on remembering the dumb friend I
| had who thought it would be a good idea to try to make one, not
| knowing anything about high voltage electricity.
|
| Luckily, we were also too distracted by video games to go
| dumpster diving for a CRT or microwave transformer.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| I can show MIT how to fold a sheet of paper to make a plane with
| no moving parts.
| xnorswap wrote:
| That's a very "just used a pencil" type punchline.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I'd say a glider is more like having the words pre-printed on
| the paper. Most of the elements of writing are there, but in
| the wrong way.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| Would a paper airplane in a tornado (or nice thermal) count?
| jacquesm wrote:
| You can 'fly' semis in tornados, so no.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WABqwKjQM_c
| judge2020 wrote:
| This was done in 50's and 60's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion-
| propelled_aircraft
|
| > The use of EHD propulsion for lift was studied by American
| aircraft designer Major Alexander Prokofieff de Seversky in the
| 1950s and 1960s. He filed a patent for an "ionocraft" in 1959. He
| built and flew a model VTOL ionocraft capable of sideways
| manoeuvring by varying the voltages applied in different areas,
| although the heavy power supply remained external.
| beanjuice wrote:
| Heres an old video of one such example:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GijJmIz1G7U
| teraflop wrote:
| I think there's a big _qualitative_ difference between an
| aircraft that can carry its own power source, and one that
| needs to be tethered to the ground.
| YeBanKo wrote:
| Well, there is also a huge advancement in small power sources
| since 60s
| samizdis wrote:
| Wow. Seversky was the guy advocating for long-range air power
| in WWII. He wrote _Victory Through Air Power_ , which inspired
| Disney to finance an animated film on the subject out of his
| own pocket. Seversky appears in person in the film to introduce
| some concepts. The film is just amazing. It was available as
| part of a Disney DVD compilation quite a few years ago (Disney
| in the Trenches? [edit to correct title of box set: it was
| "Walt Disney Treasures - On the Front Lines"]). The standalone
| film is on archive.org:
|
| https://archive.org/details/VictoryThroughAirPower
|
| Edit to add: Here's the Wikipedia page about _Victory Through
| Air Power_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Through_Air_Power
|
| From the page:
|
| _Filmmaker Walt Disney read the book, and felt that its
| message was so important that he would personally finance a
| partly-animated short, also called Victory Through Air Power,
| which was released in July 1943.[3] Disney 's purpose for
| creating the film was to promote Seversky's theories to
| government officials and the public. After seeing the film,
| Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt decided that
| Seversky knew what he was talking about, changing the course of
| the war._
| danielmorozoff wrote:
| This is exactly right, when I was in grad school we also
| explored new ionization designs to reduce the voltage
| requirements to achieve this. In our explorations, biggest
| problems were weight and voltage issues.
|
| Very cool to see though, you can make this at home with a very
| basic high voltage generator and a set of needles.
|
| Here's another design for DIY:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGq7LfjDyZM
| thehappypm wrote:
| Does this work because of the mass difference between electrons
| and protons?
|
| If you separate an electron from an atom, charge is conserved,
| mass in conserved. Apply an electric field, then you shoot the
| ion one way and the electron the other. The heavy ion then acts
| like propellant. Mass still conserved, charge still conserved. At
| some point the electron is absorbed into some random ion
| elsewhere and the ion grabs an electron from elsewhere.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| I wonder if this stuff would attract lightning
| dwighttk wrote:
| Hope it doesn't crash into anything
| make3 wrote:
| the video is really not convincing lol, it doesn't look like it's
| doing much more than gliding from the initial launch force, which
| is due to an external (moving) force.
|
| EDIT: ok this one is more convincing
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iihprC5Huf4
| jacquesm wrote:
| I'm not buying that, that whine sounds just like a ducted fan
| and there is a giant hole in the support base just where the
| ducted fan needs to blow the air to avoid having that air
| pushed sideways, if the lift was generated by the ionized air
| it would be nearly silent.
| thehappypm wrote:
| The first video shows unpowered, just a little glide. Second
| shows how it goes way further when powered
| make3 wrote:
| couldn't see those on my phone. Wish I could delete my
| comment.
| okasaki wrote:
| Presumably there are moving parts involved, they are just too
| small to see.
| jdlshore wrote:
| It operates by using a high voltage to strip electrons from
| nitrogen atoms, then the opposite current to attract those ions
| to the front surface of a wing. The movement of the ions causes
| the air to move, which generates lift over the wing.
|
| So no, there's no moving parts involved in generating the lift.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| I think GP was making a joke that the ions are the moving
| part.
| ajoseps wrote:
| this news is from 2018
| jonplackett wrote:
| Ok but does it make enough lift for a flying saucer
| exhilaration wrote:
| Apparently, yes! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iihprC5Huf4
| jonplackett wrote:
| Awesome!
| anonu wrote:
| Article from 2018 - how has the progress on this tech been over
| the last 4 years?
|
| CUrious whether the physics can support much larger payloads.
| makeworld wrote:
| (2018)
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(page generated 2022-06-30 23:00 UTC)