Silent and Simple Ion Engine Powers a Plane with No Moving Parts

a reply to: dug88

Doesnt look like the engines did much to keep it flying. Looks like they invented the glider.

a reply to: dragonridr

It's proof of principle little more, the aircraft would have to be just that, essentially a glider as the ion drives would have provided little thrust so the lighter and more glider like the better.
The principle is proven though now an engine that uses no moving part's but of course to make it a viable prospect they now need to reinvent the ion engine to provide a massive increase in thrust potential else this will always be a low altitude novelty.

a reply to: dug88

I will say this, on the other hand, humans lifted out of the sea along with many other creatures to reproduce life because of our ability to not retake carbon & netrogen like most seaers. We have created a more self substained dirtlikeish self of state as a land roaming animal.

How are we to define the differention from less evilutionary humans called fish to apes that are also lesser in a race to space? Can we do what we do without that question? Many answers leave questions, that bring us to the point of human law though so we can not get into that societal point on this thread. We all life up from sea to land, air & beyond through devoloping different chemical insignias ha

Fantastic news.

This technology has matured significantly for spacecraft. It is interesting to me that it can be adapted to work on Earth.

a reply to: projectvxn

Ion drives used in space are somewhat different.

But what they have in common is very low thrust.

I hate to be the one to rain on Steve Barrett's parade, but he’s not the first one to fly an ion wind powered UAV. A friend and colleague of mine built and flew one for the government about 10 or 12 years ago.

Back when I was still an aerospace engineer for NASA on the West coast, I had a friend and colleague aerospace engineer who worked for a different agency on the other side of the country. He was the most creative and productive airplane designer in the country that you’ve probably never heard of. During his career he had designed, built, and flown probably several dozen prototypes, some of which went into series production. He designed small ones and big ones, piloted ones and unpiloted ones, fast ones and slow ones. He did this for the military as well as for three letter agencies. Some of his designs were completely unclassified, some were deep dark, and some were in between. His ion wind UAV was one of the in between ones. It wasn’t formally classified, but on the other hand, it was never publicized in any way. My friend is no longer alive, and I never got his permission to give names and locations to anyone else, so that’s why I’m keeping this description generic and nonattributable.

Like me, he had a private interest in the UFO phenomenon and, I think for that reason, was always open to considering out of the box ideas. That reputation got around, and back when the ion wind “Lifters” became a kind of underground movement, a government agency other than the one he worked for approached him and gave him a little funding to spend some time seeing 1) what physics was behind the “Lifters” (also known as “ionocraft”) and 2) whether it could be used to construct practical flight vehicles.

See:
en.wikipedia.org...

His lab recreated the experiments with vertical lifting ionocraft as described in the popular literature and determined that there was nothing mysterious going on; it was simply naturally occurring ions in the air being accelerated and entraining the non ionized air molecules along with them. They quickly realized that even using the lightest power supplies that the US military could acquire, there was no way they could make the thing lift its own weight. But, like the guy from MIT in the SciAm article, they realized they could probably push an airplane with it if they could make an airframe with an L/D of about 20 or so. That is about like a low performance sailplane, so that wasn’t really a challenge.

Unlike the MIT guy, they integrated the ion propulsion effect right in to the wing. They simply put a conducting wire out in front of the leading edge of the wing on insulated posts and made the skin of the wing a conducting surface. That way the ion wind would flow directly from the negatively charged wire directly toward and around the positively charged wing surface. In effect the wing became a blown surface.

I never saw the videos of it, but my friend said it worked pretty well. And it produced a number of interesting effects, some of which the posters here have already mentioned. It was pretty quiet, except for the hissing and crackling of corona discharge (which you had to be pretty close to to hear). When flown at night, it produced a soft, spooky blue glow from the corona. And yes, it was basicaly a flying bug zapper. Additionally, because the wings and some of the fuselage was surrounded continuously by a low density ion sheath the configuration naturally had a certain amount of radar stealth.

My friend gave the information to the sponsoring agency and that’s the last I heard of it. Whether it ever turned into an operational device, I have no idea.

a reply to: dug88

This made me think about HAARP and I'm wondering if it is being used as a "force field" where they beam the energy into the ionosphere and it does something similar to what was shown in the video. If you look for the story about 3M creating an actual forcefield in the 1980's (it was by accident) as a result from static from huge polyethylene rolls being unspooled. It was suppsedly incredibly strong and I think the two might just be able to work together to make a force field and or propulsion, depending on how it is designed.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

This made me think about HAARP and I'm wondering if it is being used as a "force field"

No. It isn't.

where they beam the energy into the ionosphere and it does something similar to what was shown in the video.

No. It doesn't.

a reply to: 1947boomer

Very cool addition to the thread.

Even seeing UFO's in flight performing actions Known human manufactured air craft can not perform is enough to spur on some great innovation's as inventor's and theorist's attempt first to explain what they have seen and second to put there own or other's theory's into practice if they can, of course most innovation come's from the aerospace industry itself but every now and then.

Sound's like your friend should have been a little more famous but I guess it was under the onus of secrecy that he worked on his project.

originally posted by: dragonridr
a reply to: dug88

Doesnt look like the engines did much to keep it flying. Looks like they invented the glider.

The principle of the lifter has been around for many years and I am surprised someone has not tried this before. There are many video's showing how to make and how to fly a lifter... Here is the shortest video I could find. youtu.be...


Unfortunately like the Ops video it takes air to make the thing work.. In a vacuum there is nothing to move to create lift so no worky unless there are new developments I am unaware of...
youtu.be...

a reply to: 727Sky
The greatest problem is supplying enough voltage. A lifter has a cord. This doesn't, so it is using aerodynamic lift instead of pure thrust over gravity. Trying to, anyway.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: 727Sky
The greatest problem is supplying enough voltage. A lifter has a cord. This doesn't, so it is using aerodynamic lift instead of pure thrust over gravity. Trying to, anyway.

Looks to me that the added weight of their engines just made the glider useless. They could have gone alot further without all that weight on the glider. The thrust provided didn't even make up for the added weight much less move the craft.

a reply to: dragonridr

There are no engines. That's the point.

But there are batteries. Which are heavy.

Just not enough thrust to be anything other than a cool thing, like a lifter.

In a controlled hall or room with no airflow it looks cool..Put it out on a windy day and see how it goes.The old lift,thrust,drag,weight conundrum still stands..

Muon, laser propulsion will be much more interesting.

45 degrees downward, phase movement, rotational, like a screw.

originally posted by: rickymouse
You know what scares me about this? I understood completely what this guy was talking about. I am enthused by this, I have turned back into a nerd again. I was a nerd in highschool, I spent most of my life trying to fit in and it was very hard. Now in my sixties I am losing my way and returning to nerdology.

What's interesting is that you point out that you found it easy to understand. That is a clear sign of something that will become a significant part of our civilization. Also being easy to understand means that its a simple idea and as for long time, its been said its the simple ideas that are often the best.

It also shows that technical technology like this isn't that technical yet if we do not think it up, we will never push to try achieve it.

I hope this man develops an actual plane and he gets the respect he deserves.

So, let's think for a moment. He got some thrust, nothing grandiose, but this engine is using electron differences. A muon, is essentially a fat electron. Same basic idea, but a mass of 207~ times that of an electron. So, if we were to utilize the same for this idea, would you not expect a vast improvement?

Either way, there is a nice gauge theory secret involving Muons that will yield a very powerful propulsive action.

So, let's think for a moment. He got some thrust, nothing grandiose, but this engine is using electron differences. A muon, is essentially a fat electron. Same basic idea, but a mass of 207~ times that of an electron. So, if we were to utilize the same for this idea, would you not expect a vast improvement?

Either way, there is a nice gauge theory secret involving Muons that will yield a very powerful propulsive action.

So, let's think for a moment. He got some thrust, nothing grandiose, but this engine is using electron differences. A muon, is essentially a fat electron. Same basic idea, but a mass of 207~ times that of an electron. So, if we were to utilize the same for this idea, would you not expect a vast improvement?

Either way, there is a nice gauge theory secret involving Muons that will yield a very powerful propulsive action.

So, let's think for a moment. He got some thrust, nothing grandiose, but this engine is using electron differences. A muon, is essentially a fat electron. Same basic idea, but a mass of 207~ times that of an electron. So, if we were to utilize the same for this idea, would you not expect a vast improvement?

Either way, there is a nice gauge theory secret involving Muons that will yield a very powerful propulsive action.