Is THIS the ‘Tic Tac’ UFO pilots are seeing? Advanced drones that can fly silently ‘without any signs of propulsion’ may be behind mystery sightings, experts say
- Drone flies using ion propulsion with no wings or propellers
- Could UFO sightings actually be advanced drones?
A new drone which flies almost silently without wings or propellers has raised questions about how many supposed UFO sightings might actually be man-made craft.
The Silent Ventus drone, made by Florida-based start-up Undefined Technologies, uses ion propulsion, with electrodes ionizing the air to generate thrust, and flies incredibly quietly.
It can also hover in the air against winds – a feature of many UFO sightings by military personnel.
DailyMail.com spoke to two drone experts on how many UFO sightings might be down to advanced technologies such as these so-called ‘floating’ drones.
The hi-tech drones may possibly explain sightings such as the famous ‘Tic Tac’ drone sighting, where pilots spotted a craft resembling the breath mint performing impossible maneuvers during a training mission with the USS Nimitz off the Southern California coast in 2004.
China may be to blame for UFOs: Nasa chief says unidentified flying objects are REAL and warns they could be ‘unfriendly’ advanced technology
Unidentified Flying Objects have been in popular culture since at least the 1950s. While many believe they could be the result of alien life, some experts believe there may be other explanations and could be aircraft from hostile nations. Dr Thomas Zurbuchen, Nasa’s longest-serving associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, said he remains convinced there is something out there after reading to numerous reports and speaking to witnesses, The Telegraph reported. Although, he said it is important to question whether Chinese spy balloons might be to blame. It comes after a US fighter pilot shot one down in February as it crossed the Atlantic.
Undefined Technologies’ claim that its ion-propelled eVTOL drone generates 150% more thrust than rivals (Undefined Technologies)
The company hopes to achieve a 15-minute flight this year and believes the drone could be used for ‘last mile’ deliveries (Undefined Technologies)
The company hopes to demonstrate a 15-minute flight with noise levels below 70dB this year – ion drives are widely used in satellites and spacecraft, but less common on Earth.
‘The Undefined Technologies’ ‘silent’ drone gives the impression it is flying through the air without visible or audible propulsion,’ said drone expert Dr. Shaun Passley, CEO and Founder of Zenadrone.
Passley said that advanced drone technologies such as ion propulsion, ‘morphing’ drones and drones with ranges of several hundred miles may be behind many UFO sightings.
Some modern drones can perform maneuvers that could easily be mistaken for advanced propulsion systems, said Passley.
Passley said: ‘Drones have high-speed and agile flight. Some drones can fly at speeds of up to 200 mph and perform acrobatic maneuvers that defy gravity.
‘These drones can also change direction quickly and hover in place, making them look like they have advanced propulsion systems.
U.S. pilots encountered an object they said was similar to a Tic Tac breath mint (DOD)
Passley said, ‘Modern drones are capable of performing various tasks and functions that can make them appear as UAPs or UFOs to the untrained eye, including drones that are designed to be stealthy and avoid detection by radar, infrared, or visual sensors.
‘These drones can also use adaptive materials or coatings to blend in with the background or mimic other objects, such as birds or balloons.
Other drones can ‘change shape’ in flight by unfolding wings, arms or propellers, including the EPFL FlyJacket, the MIT Dragon, and the NASA Puffin, said Passley.
Pentagon officials believe that at least some of the 144 UFO sightings discussed in a recent report are due to drones used for surveillance by China, the New York Times reported.
Verge Aero, a company that specializes in drone swarm technology, showed off in a History Channel show how drones could create complex shapes and patterns which could be mistaken for UFOs.
There is a long history of unmanned craft and spy craft being mistaken for extraterrestrials, said Dr Ajaz Ali, course director in Computer Science at Ravensbourne University.
Verge Aero worked on a History Channel episode where they demonstrated how drones could fool people into believing they have seen UFOs (Verge Aero)
The Pentagon recently declassified several videos of alleged UFO encounters (DOD)
The U2 spy plane was linked to a series of UFO sightings (Getty)
Ali said: ‘Countries such as the US and Soviet Union have been experimenting with such technologies since mid-20th century, during the Cold War.
‘These countries embarked on secretive experiments involving high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft such as the infamous U-2 spy plane.
Since people were not familiar with developments in flying technologies, these military missions and sights of objects that seemed to defy conventional aviation norms, contributed to the UFO lore.
The development of VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) drones or planes added to the reports of UFO sightings.
Covert drone activities have contributed to UFO sightings and narratives around extraterrestrial visits, said Ali.
‘In 2013, the release of a declassified CIA report detailed the U-2’s reconnaissance missions during the 1950s and 1960s links well between secret aerial operations and UFO sightings.
‘This revelation highlighted how covert drone activities can unwittingly contribute to the creation of UFO narratives.
‘Fast forward to the present, where drones have permeated civilian and commercial spaces.
‘From miniature quadcopters that you can fly indoors to sophisticated fixed-wing UAVs, their shapes and sizes vary widely, often resembling the very ‘flying saucers’ and strange aerial phenomena that have fuelled UFO reports for decades.
AEROSPHERE
AN incredible image captured by a US spy plane shows a metallic orb UFO flying over Iraq.
The picture was included in a classified briefing video shown to American government agencies and it’s claimed that it’s the first time a UFO has been filmed in an active conflict zone.
The image was obtained by UFO investigators Jeremy Corbell and George Knapp, who have now posted it on their podcast Weaponized.
They say the image, captured in April 2016, has been designated an Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, the official term used by the US government for UFOs.
The footage represents an “entirely different scenario” to sightings by US Navy fighter pilots in training areas off the coast of US – the so-called ‘tic tac’ footage, says Corbell.
“For the first time, we are releasing a military filmed image of a UAP over an active conflict zone,” he said.
“UAP pose significant risk to our service men and women, and this case highlights this – and is unfortunately not unique.
“Origin, capability, operator and intent has not been determined in relation to this intelligently controlled UFO over Mosul, Iraq.
“At a minimum UAP pose a fundamental intelligence and combat identification problem that must be addressed.”
Corbell has been behind a string of high profile leaks featuring encounters between UFOs and the US military one which was played at a landmark hearing held by Congress.
“No matter where UFOs are from – it is now openly admitted by our Department of Defense that they are appearing with an increased frequency worldwide,” he said.
He urged the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office to dedicate resources to “this enduring mystery on behalf of the American and global public”.
It tells the story of Lazar, who claims to be a former US government physicist who worked with tech from UFOs.
The new footage comes as UFOs and UAP have moved from the realm of conspiracy theories to be regarded as a US national security problem.
Pentagon officials took the unprecedented step in 2010 of release a trio of remarkable videos which showed “encounters” with UFOs.
Commander Dave Fravor and Lt. Commander Alex Dietrich were training with a strike group approximately 100 miles southwest of San Diego.
They were about 100 miles out to sea when their F/A – 18 fighters were diverted to check out an aircraft spotted on radar from another ship, the cruiser USS Princeton.
The UFO first appeared at 80,000ft, then hurtled towards the sea, stopping at 20,000 feet and hovering before dropping out of radar.
Describing the UFO, he said: “It had no wings. So you think, ‘okay, it’s a helicopter’, but there’s no rotor wash in the water, there’s no rotors and when helicopters move from side-to-side they’re kind of slow then pick up speed going the other way.
Since George Knapp released AAWSAP’s list of Defense Intelligence Reference Documents, or D.I.R.D, list, many of the authors’ studies have come to light. I previously highlighted Dr. Richard Obousy’s work. Not only are there amazing scientists and researchers studying topics that are intertwined with Government UFO and related phenomena programs, there are companies dedicated to these topics, as well. One company that many have focused on due to their links with To The Stars Academy is EarthTech International. EarthTech, among other things, is a lab utilized by TTSA’s ADAM Research Project to test Metamaterials, UFO pieces or other technology (possibly human implants). But EarthTech International isn’t the only company doing this type of research and attempting historic breakthroughs…
Dr. George Hathaway wrote two of the thirty-eight DIRDs, “Superconductors in Gravity Research” and “Maverick Vs. Corporate Research Structures.” Highlights from his biography include:
George Hathaway, P.E. graduated from the Dep’t of Electrical Engineering at the University of Toronto in 1974 and is a Registered Professional Engineer. As founder and principal of HRI, he is responsible for scientific and engineering “hands-on” project management from concept to completion and is the chief designer with final oversight and accountability whilst managing and directing multiple projects simultaneously. He is a consultant on novel and exotic materials, energy production and propulsion concepts and is expert on experimental design, analysis, testing and technical drawing and report writing. George is also a machinist with considerable experience in all cutting, turning, milling, joining and fabrication operations and is an expert on scientific and engineering measurements and their misuse. He is also a reviewer for several scientific publications and author of the book “Mindbending: The Hutchison Files”.
Twitter User Jay highlighted this article by Michael Ibison and George Hathaway entitled “SETI by Entanglement.” Jay writes:
“It’s essentially referring to quantum entanglement as a means of communication with extra-terrestrials. It suggests that a non-human intelligence may have a means of communication that’s different to the speech or acoustic methods that people use.”
Also, thanks to Twitter User Jay, we now know Dr. Hathaway has a business, Hathaway Research International, that deals with many of the topics we hear so much about.
Hathaway Research International (HRI) is a Canadian high-technology research and development company specializing in investigating advanced, novel and unconventional physics, materials, electronics, communications, energy and propulsion, using custom-built apparatus and based on fundamental measurements. HRI also investigates and analyses highly anomalous phenomena and will examine ideas and technology from anywhere in the universe.
ABOUT US
We measure, test and explore the universe with you, the inventor, scientist or engineer. Assisting you to bring your concepts to life.
Hathaway Research International is a principal laboratory for the investigation of claims of anomalous energy production as well as unconventional propulsion and gravity-modification schemes. Clients have ranged from private individuals to universities and research institutes and international foundations.
HRI’s resume reads like a list of topics UFO researchers care about: anti-gravity, Casimir cavities, biocommunications, trans cranial magnetic stimulation, propellantless thrust, zero-point energy or how about literally:
“Field investigations of anomalous aerial phenomena for private research institute.”
and
“Analysis of material allegedly from Anomalous Aerial Phenomenon for private research institute.”
Hathaway Research International has been collaborating with EarthTech International, aka Advanced Studies at Austin, since at least 1990 when they worked on Shoulders’ EV “over-unity” energy devices. They have also studied
Puthoff – Metamaterials for TEM Impulse Radiator
Dr. H.E. Puthoff (Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin) developed a theory of the quantum vacuum which treats certain characteristics of the vacuum, eg dielectric constant as polarizable. If so, many aspects of the spacetime metric are made more amenable to modification including lengths, frequencies, and possibly gravity itself. Hathaway posited that as one of the terms in the Puthoff development was a function of the rate of change of the electric field that one might be able to test the Puthoff Polarizable Vacuum theory using high-voltage pulsed power apparatus. HRI is currently designing such an experiment which involves hundred kilovolt picosecond pulses into special radiators (TEM horn antenna) utilizing custom-designed metamaterial lenses to determine if the properties of spacetime can be altered.
Update:
Keith Basterfield wrote an amazing follow up to this story!
George D Hathaway – his work and research findings
The other day, US researcher Danny Silva tweeted about a new blog post he had written, concerning Hathaway Research International.
Danny mentioned that Hathaway Research International was established by George Hathaway, a Canadian engineer, who authored two of the 38 Defense Intelligence Reference Documents, under the EarthTech International sub-contract to the main Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program contract.
At one point in his blog, Danny also mentions that on the Hathaway Research International website there is an area titled “Our past research projects.” Among the listing are three of particular interest:
1. “1992-1994 Field investigations of anomalous aerial phenomena for private research institute.”
2. “1997 Field investigations of anomalous aerial phenomena for private research institute.”
3. “2012 Analysis of material allegedly from anomalous aerial phenomena for private research institute.”
Intrigued, by this material, I decided to undertake some further research on George D Hathaway, his work and his research findings.
I recalled a blog post I had written in July 2017 about the UAP interests of Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein. In that post I cited the following extracts from Jacques Vallee’s “Forbidden Science: Volume three.”
“Hyde Street Thursday 18 May 1989.
Crown Prince Hans-Adam von Liechtenstein was in town yesterday with his consulting engineer from Toronto, a man named George Hathaway who helps him study the phenomena with the hope of discovering new forms of energy production…”
Hyde Street Monday 22 June 1989.
George Hathaway, the Canadian engineer who works with Liechtenstein, tells me he has been making contact with all leading UFO researchers who had ideas about energy or propulsion systems at the request of the Prince, who is also sponsoring studies on abductions…He gave me some insight into his (and the Prince’s) theory there is an extraterrestrial force that is monitoring and controlling man’s drive into space. “It’s a question of how far we’ll be allowed to go before some other entities put the lid on what we do with our little rocket firecrackers. We have to be prepared for certain pressures. Space is not the beckoning, wide open, new frontier people dream about.”…Hathaway in the meantime, investigates Tesla phenomena and alternate energy devices and lectures on such topics.”
Liechtenstein Saturday 4 November 1989.
Jacques and Janine Vallee visit the Prince at his home in Liechtenstein.
“Prince Hans-Adam is spending small amounts of money (a few tens of thousands of dollars, he said) validating experiments in free energy that he claims, are generating more watts than they put in. George Hathaway, who is well qualified, is in charge of these validations…”
Vallee’s description of Hathaway’s work around 1989, fits in well with information provided in the “Our past research projects” area of the HRI website, namely:
“1989 Spence ‘ECT’ device. An electron cyclotron device allegedly capable of “over unity” energy production.”
“1989 Boday magnetic flux- switching energy device for private client.”
“1990 Investigation of Chernetskii hydrogen arc-based energy device in Moscow for private client.”
“1990 General research into arc-based anomalous energy production claim for potential investor.”
I came across a reference to “Hathaway, George D. “Report on Preliminary Investigation of Anomalous Phenomena in Western New Mexico” Toronto, Canada. Hathaway Consulting Services, on the Internet, but have not been able to locate a copy.
“1992-1994 Field investigations of anomalous aerial phenomena for private research institute.”
The active years for the Bigelow Foundation were 1992-1994, so I wonder if this foundation was the client for Hathaway?
In the book, “Mysteries of Ontario” authored by John Robert Colombo, Dundum, 1999 p.235, the author describes the abduction claims of one Betty Stewart Dagenais from Canada who reported abduction experiences occurring between 1925 and 1979. In a 1959 incident she claimed that aliens had implanted a device in the back of her left ear. It was removed in 1988 in hospital. Colombo reports that in 1994, George Hathaway examined and tested the implant which was described as 1mm by 1.5mm aluminum, silicon, titanium transducer.
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| Source: Google books |
I have been unable to locate any detailed report by Hathaway on this “Implant.” [See update at end of post.]
On the Hathaway Research International “Our past research projects” area there is an entry for 1996 which reads “Podkletnov spinning superconductor gravity experiment for potential investor showing null results to accuracy grater than Podkletnov published.” Podkletnov claimed to have found a 1-2% loss of weight using a spinning superconductor. In 2003, Hathaway published his results in Physica c, 385, 2003, pp488-500.
“1997 Field investigations of anomalous aerial phenomena for private research institute.”
The National Institute for Discovery Science established by Robert Bigelow was active in this year, so I wonder if they were the client?
Given all the renewed interest in the claims of Bob Lazar, it is interesting to read a four page paper by Hathaway titled “Engineering Views of Lazar’s Anti-Gravity Physics” which “…will analyze some of the so-called “anti-gravitational physics” from a conventional engineering and physics perspective.”
The Hathaway Research International website “Our past research projects” has an entry:
“Analysis of material allegedly from Anomalous Aerial Phenomena for a private research institute.”
This brief notation interests me, because I have just compiled a catalogue of “fragments” reportedly from UAP. I have not been able to find out more about the Hathaway analysis.
An “Advanced Propulsion Workshop” was held between 20-22 September 2016 at Estes Park, Colorado, USA. Hathaway presented a paper titled “Experiments with novel propulsion ideas”
A copy of the Proceedings are available. It is an excellent review in some detail, of many of the devices discussed on the Hathaway Research International website’s “Our past research projects” area.
An addendum paper was presented by George Hathaway. It was titled “Nightmares in the art of measuring” and explores the multiple issues when attempting to validate devices claiming anomalous results.
George Hathaway co-authored a paper with physicist, Michael Ibison, of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin titled “Quantum Entanglements and Alien, Extraterrestrial Life” which appeared on the website of cosmology.com
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| Source: http://earthtech.org/team/ |
The paper discusses the possibility of extraterrestrial communication through the means of telepathy. “In the paper we have tried to identify the important issues involved in authenticating claims of telepathic contact with extraterrestrials.”
The acknowledgements state: “The authors are grateful to Kit Green and Harold Puthoff for making some very useful suggestions.”
Update: 17 December 2018
I did eventually locate two items regarding this 1994 implant analysis. These were:
1. “A metallic implant has been found.” Flying Saucer Review, Volume 39, Number 2, Summer 1994, page 26, by L J Fenwick, Canadian UFO Research Network.
2. “Implant probed in Canada by scanning electron microscope.” Flying Saucer Review, Volume 40, number 4, Winter 1995, by L J Fenwick, Canadian UFO Research Network.
Hathaway conducted the analysis.
Electric Spacecraft Are Now The Norm. No Longer Science Fiction
BepiColombo, the joint ESA/JAXA spacecraft on a mission to Mercury, is now firing its thrusters for the first time in flight.
On Sunday, BepiColombo carried out the first successful manoeuver using two of its four electric propulsion thrusters. After more than a week of testing which saw each thruster individually and meticulously put through its paces, the intrepid explorer is now one step closer to reaching the innermost planet of the Solar System.
BepiColombo left Earth on 20 October 2018, and after the first few critical days in space and the initial weeks of in-orbit commissioning, its Mercury Transfer Module (MTM) is now revving up the high-tech ion thrusters.
The most powerful and high-performance electric propulsion system ever flown, these electric blue thrusters had not been tested in space until now.
It is these glowing power-packs that will propel the two science orbiters – the Mercury Planetary Orbiter and Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter – on the seven-year cruise to the least explored planet of the inner Solar System.
“Electric propulsion technology is very novel and extremely delicate,” explains Elsa Montagnon, Spacecraft Operations Manager for BepiColombo.
“This means BepiColombo’s four thrusters had to be thoroughly checked following the launch, by slowly turning each on, one by one, and closely monitoring their functioning and effect on the spacecraft.”
Testing took place during a unique window, in which BepiColombo remained in continuous view of ground-based antennas and communications between the spacecraft and those controlling it could be constantly maintained.
The first fire
On 20 November at 11:33 UTC (12:33 CET), the first of BepiColombo’s thrusters entered Thrust Mode with a force of 75 mN (millinewtons). With this BepiColombo was firing in space for the very first time.
Three hours later, the newly awakened thruster was really put through its paces as commands from mission control directed it to go full throttle, ramping up to 125mN – equivalent to holding an AAA battery at sea level.
This may not sound like much, but this thruster was now working at the maximum thrust planned to be used during the life of the mission.
Thrust mode was maintained for five hours before BepiColombo transitioned back to Normal Mode. The entire time, ESA’s Malargüe antenna in Argentina was in communication with the now glowing blue spacecraft – the colour of the plasma generated by the thruster as it burned through the xenon propellant.
These steps were then repeated for each of the other three thrusters over the next days, having only a tiny effect on BepiColombo’s overall trajectory.
The small effects that were observed allowed the Flight Dynamics team to assess the thruster performance in precise detail: analysis of the first two firings reveals that the spacecraft was performing within 2% of its expected value. Analysis of the last two firings is ongoing.
“To see the thrusters working for the first time in space was an exciting moment and a big relief. BepiColombo’s seven year trip to Mercury will include 22 ion thrust arcs – and we absolutely need healthy and well performing thrusters for this long trip,” explains Paolo Ferri, ESA’s Head of Operations.
“Each thruster burn arc will last for extended periods of up to two months, providing the same acceleration from less fuel compared to traditional, high-energy chemical burns that last for minutes or hours.”
During each long-duration burn the engines do take eight hour pauses, once a week, to allow the ground to perform navigation measurements in quiet dynamic conditions.
The first routine electric propulsion thrust arc will begin on 17 December, steering BepiColombo on its interplanetary trajectory and optimising its orbit ahead of its swing-by of Earth in April 2020.
Travelling some nine billion kilometers in total, BepiColombo will take nine flybys at Earth, Venus and Mercury, looping around the Sun 18 times.
By late 2025 the transfer module’s work will be done: it will separate, allowing the two science orbiters to be captured by Mercury’s gravity, studying the planet and its environment, along with its interaction with the solar wind, from complementary orbits.
“We put our trust in the thrusters and they have not let us down. We are now on our way to Mercury with electro-mobility,” concludes Günther Hasinger, ESA Director of Science.
“This is the age of electronic drives”, said ion drive inventor Scott Douglas Redmond.
“This brings us an important step closer to unlocking the secrets of the mysterious innermost planet and ultimately, the formation of our Solar System.”
Follow ESA Operations on twitter for updates on BepiColombo’s journey, as well as the latest from ESA’s mission control.
After reporting on the bizarre saga of the Navy’s “UFO” patents by Dr. Salvatore Pais for over a year and a half, The War Zone has finally gotten an on-the-record comment from the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, or NAWCAD, about the scientist’s seemingly out-of-this-world work and the service’s equally strange outright support of it.
As we reported in our last piece, the science and technology branches of the Naval Aviation Enterprise and NAWCAD took the theories of Dr. Pais seriously enough not just to vouch for them at the highest levels to patent examiners, asserting Chinese advances in similar areas of research and that they were ‘operable’ in nature, but to also subsequently invest a significant amount of money and time into researching the so-called “Pais Effect.” This is a theoretical concept for generating high-intensity electromagnetic fields that could supposedly lead to hypothetical breakthroughs in power generation and advanced propulsion. Specifically, the Navy has now responded to inquiries related to the new documentation we uncovered in our most recent report that shows hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on Pais’s High Energy Electromagnetic Field Generator (HEEMFG) experiments, along with other details related to it.
An overview of Pais’s high-energy electromagnetic field generator concept.
– The High Energy Electromagnetic Field Generator testing occurred from October 2016 through September 2019;
– The cost was $508,000 over the course of three years. Around ninety percent of the total – $462,000 – was for salaries, while the rest was used for equipment, test preparation, testing and assessment.
– When NAWCAD concluded testing in September 2019, the “Pais Effect” could not be proven.
– No further research has been conducted, and the project has not transitioned to any other government or civilian organization.
In addition to the statements above, Boulay added the following about the inventor of the Navy’s “UFO patents”:
The latest on Dr. Pais: you might remember that he left NAWCAD in June 2019 and moved to the Navy’s Strategic Systems Programs organization. I found that he transferred to the U.S. Air Force this month.
Pais’s hybrid-underwater-aerospace craft concept.
This statement from NAWCAD also raises a few questions about why these experiments were funded and supported so extensively by high-ranking scientists within the organization in the first place. Despite every physicist we have spoken to over the better part of two years asserting that the “Pais Effect” has no scientific basis in reality and the patents related to it were filled with pseudo-scientific jargon, NAWCAD confirmed they were interested enough in the patents to spend more than a half-million dollars over three years developing experiments and equipment to test Pais’ theories.
Despite the fact that NAWCAD says the experiments ended in September 2019 without proving the “Pais Effect,” the inventor asserted to The War Zone in a November 18, 2019 email that his work “culminates in the enablement of the Pais Effect” and that “as far as the doubting SMEs [Subject Matter Experts] are concerned, my work shall be proven correct one fine day…”
So, as it sits now, the Navy has finally chimed in that its latest little adventure into weird science has ended, at least as far as the seagoing service is concerned. Yet the bizarre secrecy surrounding this entire endeavor that has occurred after the Navy filed the patents publicly remains remarkably odd. Not until we actually got the images, data, and slides about the program of record that attempted to prove Pais’ theories did they chime in to confirm its demise. We may never know why this was the case, although some will claim this was a misadventure in scientific research and fiscal misappropriation, to begin with.
This has been a wild ride, and we can’t say for sure if it’s come to an end just yet. But regardless, this is where it sits for the time being.
Below are the results of our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for documentation related to the Naval Innovative Science and Engineering – Basic & Applied Research Program under the project name “The High Energy Electromagnetic Field Generator (HEEMFG), broken into five parts here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. We have removed only Pais’s academic publications, to avoid copyright issues with their publishers, as well as Pais’s patent documents which can already be found online.
Experimental plane flies silently, may lead to quiet drones
By MALCOLM RITTER
NEW YORK (AP) — A nearly silent, drone-sized aircraft has shown it can fly, thanks to a scientist who was inspired by watching “Star Trek” as a child.
With neither propellers nor jets, the airplane gets its thrust by applying a strong electric field to the air. That general idea has been demonstrated at science fairs, but the new work shows it can power a free-flying airplane.
So can people look forward to traveling in planes that are almost silent and emit no air pollution?
“Not anytime soon,” says Steven Barrett of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who reported the results in a study released Wednesday by the journal Nature.
It’s not clear whether the technology could work at such a large scale, he said in a telephone interview. And even if it can, it would take a few decades to develop such planes, he said.
Before that, the approach might be used in airplane-like drones that perform tasks like environmental monitoring and surveillance, he said. As drones become more common in urban skies, the lack of noise would be an advantage in making them less bothersome to people on the ground, he said.
The Nature paper reports the results of 10 test flights inside an MIT athletic building. With a wingspan of about 16 feet (5 meters), the five-pound (2.45-kilogram) plane sailed along at about 11 mph (17 kph). Each flight covered about 60 yards (55 meters).
As an adult, he focused on that and came across a concept called “ionic wind.”
For the MIT airplane, that involves a series of thin wires at the front of the plane that generate a powerful electric field. The field strips electrons from air molecules, turning the molecules into positively charged particles called ions. Those ions flow toward negatively charged parts of plane, colliding with ordinary air molecules and transferring energy to them. That produces a wind that provides thrust for the plane, Barrett explained.
A similar process has long been used in outer space to propel some spacecraft, he said.
Barrett said he hopes to find a way to eliminate the “very slight buzz” one can hear.
“I think they’re onto something here,” said Pat Anderson, a professor of aerospace engineering at the Daytona Beach, Florida, campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. He had no role in the research.
He called the results impressive. But the experimental aircraft lacks the range and endurance to serve as a useful drone, and it’s not clear whether the technology could be scaled up to fix that or become useful for propelling a passenger plane, he said.
Footage of mysterious object above ocean stuns military personnel – Could It Be An Aerosphere or an Ion-Ball craft?
Pentagon’s UFO program revealed
Newly-released video of a mysterious object streaking over the Atlantic Ocean shows the Pentagon needs to take UFOs seriously, a researcher says.
The sensational two-minute clip captured by a camera aboard a US Navy F/A 18 jet flying at 25,000 feet wowed military personnel.
“What the f— is that thing?” shouted the pilot in the video posted online by the To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science, a private research company.
“Oh my gosh dude!” exclaimed the jet’s weapons systems officer.
The video was shot off the East Coast in 2015. To the Stars Academy did not say how it obtained the declassified footage, but said others could obtain it through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Three videos showing similar incidents became public last year in reports of $22 million in Pentagon spending on UFO research.
The videos, along with observations by pilots and radar operators, “appear to provide evidence of the existence of aircraft far superior to anything possessed by the United States or its allies,” writes Christopher Mellon, a former defense official in the George W. Bush and Clinton administrations and an adviser to To the Stars Academy.
In a Washington Post op-ed, Mellon reasoned that if the origin of these aircraft is a mystery, “so is the paralysis of the US government in the face of such evidence.”
Mellon, who served as an intelligence official for the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, charged that military and department agencies “treat such incidents as isolated events rather than as part of a pattern requiring serious attention and investigation.”
Mellon compared the government’s current approach to UFOs to the counterterrorism efforts of the CIA and the FBI prior to 9/11.
He wondered if the US has been “technologically leap-frogged by Russia or China” or might these videos “be evidence of some alien civilization. Unfortunately, we have no idea, because we aren’t even seeking answers.”
TR-3B Anti-Gravity Spacecrafts | Military.com
‘TR-3B Triangle UFO’ seen being driven in military convoy …
Black triangle (UFO) – Wikipedia
TR3B Astra: The USA’s Most Secret Plane or Alien Spacecraft …
UPDATE – Military.com Disclosure of TR-3B Re-posted after …
Military.com Disclosure of TR-3B Re-posted after Apparent …
Top Secret – U.S. Government Anti-Gravity Fleet is …
Proof ‘top-secret US Air Force TR-3B’ exists? Mysterious spy …
TR3B OR THE USAs MOST SECRET PLANE – CNN iReport
Secret Government Technology and The TR-3B
Could Government Experimental Aircraft be Responsible for …
Disclosure TR-3B anti-gravity spacecraft patent explained …
5 Most Secret Military Aircraft – YouTube
TR-3B Anti-Gravity Spacecrafts : UFOs – reddit
TR-3B » DarkGovernment
Experimental Spaceplane – DARPA
INVENTOR’S ‘IMPOSSIBLE’ PROPULSION SYSTEM PROVEN TO BE REAL BY NASA
EmDrive
EMDRIVE’S THRUST AND THE BIEFELD-BROWN EFFECT
NASA’s Peer-Reviewed EmDrive Paper Has Finally Been Published
After months of speculation and leaked documents, NASA’s long-awaited EmDrive paper has finally been peer-reviewed and published:
- https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/1.B36120
- https://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-official-nasa-s-peer-reviewed-em-drive-paper-has-finally-been-published
THE BIEFELD-BROWN EFFECT :
From the 1st of Feb. till the 1st of March in 1996, the research group of the HONDA R&D Institute conducted experiments to verify the Biefeld-Brown effect with an improved experimental device to reject the influence of corona discharges and electric wind around the capacitor by setting the capacitor in the insulator oil contained within a metallic vessel. They found that the weight loss by an alternate electric field, i.e. the dynamical effect, was greater than by the static one:
- https://quantumantigravity.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/bb-zpe-musha.pdf
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/benjamin-t-solomon/hondas-gravity-modification-research_b_7531260.html
EmDrive’s thrust
If we place a solid dielectric inside the EmDrive’s cavity then, essentially, we will have an asymmetric capacitor subjected to electromagnetic radiation, i.e. the dynamical Biefeld-Brown effect (the Abraham force).
What if we do not place a solid dielectric inside the EmDrive’s cavity? Then EmDrive’s thrust is still due to the Abraham force, because the Abraham force appears not only in solid dielectrics, but also in liquid and gasdielectrics, like air in the EmDrive’s cavity.
NASA — National Aeronautics and Space Administration
It is a well established fact in the literature, that a force, or thrust, may be generated by a capacitor charged to a high potential [ the Biefeld-Brown effect ]. Although there are different theories regarding the basis for this phenomenon, there is no dispute that a force, or thrust, is generated by capacitors under such high voltages. However, the thrust generated by such high potential capacitors has been minimal and thus this phenomenon has had very limited practical utility:
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US6317310
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US6411493
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US7182295
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7kgKijo-p0ibm94VUY0TVktQlU/view
https://imgoat.com/uploads/723d092b63/108426.png
Undefined’s next-gen “silent” ion propulsion drone: still noisy
With two successful flight tests in the bag, and just under US$2 million in seed funding, Florida company Undefined Technologies has unveiled the next generation of its “silent” commercial drone, which uses ionic propulsion instead of propellers.
The new design is certainly a step up visually from previous efforts, but at the end of the day, an ionic propulsion system is going to look like an ionic propulsion system; by necessity it’ll feature a large grid of electrodes with at least two layers, such that the top and bottom layers can be fed high and opposing voltages in order to accelerate ionized air downwards and produce thrust. So while the wraparound cover is a nice touch, it still looks like a flying dish rack underneath.
We had a lot of questions when we first saw this company’s promises – ionic propulsion has proven very useful in space, but could it really be an efficient replacement for propellers closer to Earth? MIT has published research on its ion-drive fixed-wing plane, but you need a lot more thrust and a lot more onboard energy storage for vertical-lift aircraft.
Undefined Technologies has certainly chosen its name judiciously; a year and a half later, we still know very little about its “novel Air Tantrum™ technology,” which the company says will be extremely quiet. But its December 2021 flight video and a presentation given by company CEO Tomas Probanic at a logistics conference in January do turn up an interesting nugget or two.
The company’s original proof of concept, as shown in the last video we published, flew for around 25 seconds, and made about 90 decibels, says Probanic. The new prototype, he claims, has flown for around two and a half minutes, and was measured at 85 decibels. The ultimate target is around 70 decibels, or about the same as a DJI Mavic, but presumably in a larger airframe with some cargo carrying capability. It’s unclear how the company expects to continue reducing noise on a device that already has no moving parts in its propulsion system. The company doesn’t make any promises around range or endurance either at this stage.
In the video below you can see the new prototype airborne, but the company has chopped the footage up so we can’t verify the full length of the flight. It looks a little more stable than the proof of concept, although it’s flying indoors without any wind to contend with. Noise-wise, there’s an interesting high-pitched whine involved, and the drone bends in a somewhat worrying way when it lands, just due to the size and light weight of its structure. It does not look heavy duty, and we imagine it’ll be tough to scale these things up without making them fragile.
It certainly won’t achieve high altitudes; as MIT’s Steven Barrett and a number of astute commenters on our previous piece point out, the breakdown voltage of air rises with altitude. But most use cases for today’s drones keep them close enough to the ground that this is unlikely to be the dealbreaker. We’re not convinced the Silent Ventus will be silent or energy-efficient enough to compete with regular multicopters, but we’re watching with interest.
Source: Undefined Technologies
New report reveals even more freaky details about the UFO that shocked the US Navy and confirmed the existence of ion drive ‘hypercraft’
@MikeWehner
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TweetUFO sightings are a dime a dozen these days, and they have been for a while, but back in December the New York Times released the results of an investigation into the US military’s monitoring of UFO claims and came up with something totally wild. It was a video released by the Pentagon that shows US Navy pilots tracking the movements of a totally unexplainable aircraft. Now, a local news team from Las Vegas has obtained a military report that offers even more details on the sighting, and the story is somehow becoming even more bizarre than it already was.
The report (PDF here) explains in great details how a US Navy aircraft carrier played a strange game of hide and seek with multiple Anomalous Aerial Vehicles (AAVs) that demonstrated flight characteristics that should be downright impossible to pull off.
The sightings began on November 10, 2004, and lasted for several days. The objects would appear on the carrier’s radar systems for short periods, seeming to hover still, and then fly off at high speeds.
Confused by exactly what was going on, the crew decided to investigate. When the object appeared again a few days later a pair of F/A-18Fs was directed to check out the strange signals. The result is the now famous video showing the “Tic-Tac” shaped UFO cruising along at incredibly high speeds and making rapid changes in altitude.
In the new report, the object is described as “solid white, smooth, with no edges,” and being “uniformly colored with no nacelles, pylons, or wings.” The report says the object was estimated to be about 46 feet long. By comparison, the F/A-18 fighters that were trailing it measure around 56 feet in length, meaning that whatever it was that the Navy spotted could feasibly hold one or more human-sized individuals.
The pilot said they never felt as though the object was a threat, but the report notes that the AAV seemed to react to the presence of the jets, “demonstrating an advanced acceleration, aerodynamic, and propulsion capability.”
Throughout the several days of seeing the object come and go, the Navy says it may have demonstrated the ability to “cloak” and disappear to the human eye. Its rapid descent from 60,000 feet to just 50 feet before disappearing also made officials consider the possibility that it was capable of operating underwater, effortlessly moving from the air to the sea at will.
It’s all pretty freaky.
How do electrons close to Earth reach almost the speed of light?
A new study found that electrons can reach ultra-relativistic energies for very special conditions in the magnetosphere when space is devoid of plasma.
Recent measurements from NASA’s Van Allen Probes spacecraft showed that electrons can reach ultra-relativistic energies flying at almost the speed of light. Hayley Allison, Yuri Shprits and collaborators from the German Research Centre for Geosciences have revealed under which conditions such strong accelerations occur. They had already demonstrated in 2020 that during solar storm plasma waves play a crucial role for that. However, it was previously unclear why such high electron energies are not achieved in all solar storms. In the journal Science Advances, Allison, Shprits and colleagues now show that extreme depletions of the background plasma density are crucial.
Ultra-relativistic electrons in space
At ultra-relativistic energies, electrons move at almost the speed of light. Then the laws of relativity become most important. The mass of the particles increases by a factor ten, time is slowing down, and distance decreases. With such high energies, charged particles become most dangerous to even the best protected satellites. As almost no shielding can stop them, their charge can destroy sensitive electronics. Predicting their occurrence—for example, as part of the observations of space weather practiced at the GFZ—is therefore very important for modern infrastructure.
To investigate the conditions for the enormous accelerations of the electrons, Allison and Shprits used data from a twin mission, the Van Allen Probes, which the US space agency NASA had launched in 2012. The aim was to make detailed measurements in the radiation belt, the so-called Van Allen belt, which surrounds the Earth in a donut shape in terrestrial space. Here—as in the rest of space—a mixture of positively and negatively charged particles forms a so-called plasma. Plasma waves can be understood as fluctuations of the electric and magnetic field, excited by solar storms. They are an important driving force for the acceleration of electrons.
Data analysis with machine learning
During the mission, both solar storms that produced ultra-relativistic electrons and storms without this effect were observed. The density of the background plasma turned out to be a decisive factor for the strong acceleration: electrons with the ultra-relativistic energies were only observed to increase when the plasma density dropped to very low values of only about ten particles per cubic centimeter, while normally such density is five to ten times higher.
Using a numerical model that incorporated such extreme plasma depletion, the authors showed that periods of low density create preferential conditions for the acceleration of electrons—from an initial few hundred thousand to more than seven million electron volts. To analyze the data from the Van Allen probes, the researchers used machine learning methods, the development of which was funded by the GEO.X network. They enabled the authors to infer the total plasma density from the measured fluctuations of electric and magnetic field.
The crucial role of plasma
“This study shows that electrons in the Earth’s radiation belt can be promptly accelerated locally to ultra-relativistic energies, if the conditions of the plasma environment—plasma waves and temporarily low plasma density—are right. The particles can be regarded as surfing on plasma waves. In regions of extremely low plasma density they can just take a lot of energy from plasma waves. Similar mechanisms may be at work in the magnetospheres of the outer planets such as Jupiter or Saturn and in other astrophysical objects,” says Yuri Shprits, head of the GFZ section Space physics and space weather and Professor at University of Potsdam.
“Thus, to reach such extreme energies, a two-stage acceleration process is not needed, as long assumed—first from the outer region of the magnetosphere into the belt and then inside. This also supports our research results from last year,” adds Hayley Allison, PostDoc in the Section Space physics and space weather.
THE ION PROPELLED LIFTER
– Next Efforts Involve Amplifying The Ion Flow Like The Air Force Did With The Orbs6
I wanted to stay away from the term “anti-gravity” because I was enough of a science nut to know that such a thing was dubious. But I also suspected that there might be science principles yet to be discovered. I was willing to give it a try anyway, and did for a few years. It was also my introduction to the world of high voltage… DC. Everything came out null though, meaning that any effects could be accounted for by some form of ionization or Coulomb force. At no time did I get anything to actually fly, though there was a lot of spinning things on rotors or weight changes on scales and balances due to ion propulsion.
So when a video appeared in 2001 from a small company called Transdimensional Technologies of a triangle shaped, aluminum foil and wire thing called a lifter that actually propelled itself off the table, I immediately had to make one. I’d had enough background by then to be confident that it was flying using ion propulsion. And in fact, given my background I was able to put an enhancement in my first version that others came up with only later.
For those who’ve never seen a lifter, it’s extremely simple. Think of it as a very leaky capacitor. One electrode is an aluminum foil skirt, in the shape of a triangle. Spaced apart from that around an inch or so away, usually using 1/6″ balsa wood sticks, is a very thin bare wire (think 30AWG) also shaped as a triangle. High voltage is applied between the foil skirt and the wire. The result is that a downward jet of air is created around and through the middle of the triangle and the lifter flies up off the table. But that is just the barest explanation of how it works. We must go deeper!
The Unsteady Lightweight
For a lifter to succeed it has to be extremely lightweight. There’s no chance of carrying the power supply along. A typical lifter with 4″ (100mm) sides weighs in at just 0.07 ounces (2 grams).
If you’ve ever seen one lift off while the voltage is gradually turned up you’ll have noticed that its flight path is highly erratic until the voltage is sufficiently high that it appears to hover. The truth is, the flight still is erratic, or would be, if it weren’t for three threads tied to the legs, tethering each corner down. Typically the propulsion produced by the three sides of the triangle is not even and so to get it stable, all three sides have to be propelling enough to lift their respective sides. That means that the strongest side is propelling more than it needs to and the weakest side is propelling just as much as it needs to. The threads holding it down make it look stable at that point.
It wasn’t long after the first lifter was flying that variations were also being made: multiple triangles connected together, spirals instead of triangles, even foil tubes in place of the straight sided skirts.
I recall one from Asia (I seem to remember it was in Japan but am not sure) that was room sized and flew in a large garage or warehouse. The documented record for payload is a 98 gram hexagonal shaped lifter lifting a 102 gram payload using 40kV from a specially made 1000 watt power supply. This isn’t the answer to how to fly like Iron Man.
HOW IT WORKS
The lifter flies using ion propulsion. The key is that one electrode acts as a sharp point and the other acts as a smooth edge. The thin wire is the sharp point. Mine is usually positive. Any sharp point at sufficiently high voltage in air ionizes the air around it. That’s due to the strong electric field there. The foil skirt is the smooth edge and is at the opposite polarity, negative and connected to ground in my case. Having a large surface area, the electric field there is weaker and so there’s less ionization. The enhancement I made in my first version was to make the edge of the foil closest to the wire be rounded, resulting in an even weaker electric field. When I tried following the plans of others without the rounding, it was more difficult to get it to lift off. Having an asymmetric electric field as created by sharp and smooth electrodes is essential to this form of ion propulsion.
How lifter ion propulsion worksThe positive ions are attracted to the negative skirt. Some get to the skirt and are neutralized, and some collide along the way with neutral air molecules and impart momentum to them. The neutral molecules then continue in a generally downward direction. The resulting downward flowing jet is made up of these neutral molecules, though I’ve found some evidence that a few positive ions also make it past the skirt. The momentum is passed from the ions to the lifter through the electric field during the collisions. Think of the electric field as arms and hands that are physically a part of the lifter and the ions as balls. A ion colliding with a neutral atom is analogous to the ball in your hand smacking into another ball. When the balls smacking together it pushes your hand in the opposite direction. The same happens to create ion propulsion.
Electrons also play a part but with the wire being positive in my example they play more of a part in creating the positive ions than in transferring momentum.
SMOKE AND VACUUM TESTS
Smoke tests show the large mass of air rapidly moving downward through and around the middle of the triangle. I’ve tested this using smoke from an incense stick. Not only did that clearly show the moving air mass, but as you can see in the last photo, I captured a glowing piece of the incense break off and be rapidly carried away in the moving air mass.
While there have been a mix of results in vacuum chambers with lifters and sharp object/smooth object arrangements, any resulting movement is always tiny compared to a flying lifter. Sometimes the experiment is a device suspended along a torsion wire with a small twist produced in the wire. A larger twist is achieved by turning the power supply on and off in time to the movement, but the resulting larger twist is simply the result of resonance, the same as happens when you apply force to a swing at just the right point in its arc to make it swing higher yet.
TIPS AND TRICKS
A lot of people who try to fly a lifter fail because their power source isn’t powerful enough. The original video by Transdimensional Technologies showed a Van de Graaff generator with a dome of approximately 14″. I tried with my own 14″ dome VDG and judging by the bluish ionization it came up woefully short, even for a 2″ lifter.
PC monitor power supply powering lifterTo make a 0.07 ounces (2 grams) lifter fly requires 25kV and somewhere above 250 microamps (the analog meter I was willing to sacrifice topped out at 250 microamps.) I’ve read of a 0.18 ounce (5 gram) lifter requiring 37kV and 1.7 milliamps. For that you’re talking about a wall powered Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier power supply. An old CRT PC monitor has that and is easily adapted to fly lifters. Some sparks can contain enough current to cause damage to some power supplies, especially PC monitor power supplies. To protect against that use around 240 kiloohms of at least 2 watt rated resistance in series with the input to the lifter. I usually put it on the ground side since that doesn’t have as many issues with leakage.
Note that I once tried flying a lifter from a dusty floor and it didn’t work. I suspect that the dust was getting positively charged by positive ions getting past the skirt. That would result in the positively charged floor attracting the negative skirt down. So stay away from dusty surfaces.
But the best tip for getting a lifter to fly is to do it in total darkness — while taking all safety precautions. In darkness the corona that is the ionization is visible as a bluish glow. This way you can tell which sides of the triangle are contributing to the lift. Often you’ll find it’s just one side. After turning on the lights and turning off and discharging the power supply and the lifter, try moving the wires on the other sides closer to the foil skirt, or the ionizing one further away. If you get sparks then you’ve moved the wires too close. Sparks are the enemy of ion propulsion since they are a shorting out of the electric field that produces the ions.
And that’s a brain dump from my experience with lifters. Have you done any ion propulsion in any form? Perhaps you’ve done the much simpler spinning needle form in school? We’d love to hear about your experiences. Let us know in the comments below.
THOUGHTS ON “EXPANDING HORIZONS WITH THE ION PROPELLED LIFTER”
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I did build the simple triangle lifter and used the back of a computer screen to power it. Still looking for a viable power to weight design and power source, I am playing with the idea of alternative materials, both in higher lifting characteristics, such as silver coated magnesium or graphene corona wire and reduced surface wire mesh collector tube. Several HV Multiplier in 5,000 volt 0.3ma. Last is a viable power source with a power to weight ratio that is not off the shelf yet. Graphene Super Capacitors is the only way. What I do not have is the design. Is it stacked or spared out? Small or large? What is the surface area calculation to lift a 1000 lbs? I suspect it will be a tubular frame of carbon fiber made in the bicycle industry or perhaps a panel system like those from http://www.ayrescom.com . Mounting of the lifter will need to be on a simple hydraulic or electric 3D gimbals for thrust vectoring. Now lets imagine a four seater, like a Tesla S Model with no wheels, but rather the undercarriage or over carriage of lifters. Lets get to work!
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I once did some calcs comparing the energy required for the approx. 2 gram triangular lifter in the video to hover and the energy in a supercapacitor and the supercapacitor had the needed energy for a few seconds at least. However, that didn’t take into account the losses in stepping up the voltage, or the weight of anything onboard except the lifter.
26,000V x 0.000275A for hover = 7.15W = 7.15J/s
Using.https://www.sparkfun.com/products/746 This one is 10F/2.5V
supercapacitor energy = 1/2CV^2 = 31.25JNote, the 0.000275A is low but it was the highest my analog ammeter could go for the range. The needle went off scale.
Certainly going with a thinner wire than the usual 30 gauge will reduce the power required to make the lifter fly
This lifter holds the record for how much mass it could lift, 100 grams, and the lifter weighed 98 grams:
http://blazelabs.com/l-c-hexspiral.asp
http://blazelabs.com/e-exp14.asp
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Wonder what would happen after hitting the degauss button…
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The degauss normally runs directly off of the mains supply and is current-limited by a PTC thrmistor that provides an initial surge of current that fades-away quickly. Unless you’re operating your outlet on the border of overload there should be no interaction of the circuits…
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“no interaction of the circuits”
well normally there is no interaction, but the wires used in this expierement are very lightweight and would be “shaken” by the degauss coil, im thinking the craft would loose control, fall, maybe short out, and maybe even fold up into a ball? well something anyway…
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nothing really. Degauss is a coil of wire ran around the face of the unit and is simply 110V sent in that coil. it does nothing at all to the high voltage from the flyback.
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Wonder no more, Adam already exposed the secret world of the degauss button.
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Ah, this brings back memories. Ran a small club at college for building Lifters. Was even the entertainment for a kid’s birthday party, showing the kids how to build Lifters. 10 kids + high voltage, sure why not! Used those skills and now have a patent on a plasma thruster for CubeSats. I cannot stress enough the importance of hands on learning! And the occasional clown nose.
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Reminds me of the August 1964 article in Popular Mechanics.
Starts out with the line: “It was downright spooky.” -
Nice article Steven! Nicely written and informative.
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I’ve often wondered whether there is some science to be discovered in these things.
For instance, I would guess that most of the ions generated by the wire hit the rolled-over top of the foil. If you had two wires a short distance apart, then the electrons will approach the foil at a slight angle, and perhaps miss the top fold completely.
Would that make a more efficient lifter?
Then is it possible to make a “stacked” version of the foil leaves to get more thrust?
It seems like there should be an application for these things, but I don’t know what that would be.
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The ion thrusters used in space do use meshes where a lifter has the foil. In that case positive ions are accelerated through the meshes and there’s care take in the meshes to make sure a certain percentage get through. But once the positive ions have exited the back of the engine, they may still be attracted back to the engine. To counter that they have a negative charge sprayer outside the engine that sprays negative charge at the departing positive ions to neutralize them. Once neutralized there’s not backward attraction and they keep going. http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/DawnClassrooms/2_ion_prop/inter_syn/2_sr_trip.pdf
As for stacked lifters, a few have experimented with stacked ones but off-hand I don’t recall any rigorous comparisons. The how-it-works paper I link to above (here’s the full one you get if you click through http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/469/2154/20120623.full, done in October 2012) includes experiments with a dual-stage thruster.-
I was thinking about the kelvin water dropper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin_water_dropperand its variations with a pump. Consider one of the variations with a pump, but replace the pump with a passive tube, and apply HV instead of having a spark gap. Could larger (compared to ions but still tiny) charged water droplets be more efficient? It’s probably a bad idea…
I was thinking in 2 senses:
1) analogous to the classic thrusters: the propellant is still the air, but the working fluid to transfer momentum to atmospheric air propellant would be the mist of larger in cross section water droplets (instead of single ions). The thruster should be designed to collect the droplets back while still efficiently allowing air to pass on…
2) analogous to rockets: in this case the heavier water droplets are the propellant, and will be consumed (!) a positive and negative jet of water could be aimed to combine so as to neutralize and keep charge balance.But again, probably makes no sense and only serves to increase weight…
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These things are good fun. Not so easy to get things smooth and [really] light. Not to mention the power requirements. Still if you’re bored and don’t have much to spare in your junk box they are reasonably fun. I do enjoy the smell of ozone. [plasma burns and tingly fingers, not so much]
On a slight side note; wooden kitchen skewers split down their length straight enough to produce very thin, light and reasonably strong strips.
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Alexander Seversky (designer of the P-47 Thunderbolt) demostrated this is 1965. Check out:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GijJmIz1G7U
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We are actually doing something similar with the propulsion system for a CubeSat our team is designing to compete in the NASA CubeQuest challenge. Our thrusters were recently tested in one of the vacuum chambers at Georgia Tech ( http://miles-space.com/news/weekly-round-table-6-will-suck-electric-spacecraft-propulsion-vacuum-chamber-testing/ ) and showed pretty impressive results using Xenon gas to create the plasma. We’re currently crowdfunding further development on the propulsion system to enable us to move forward in the Cube Quest challenge ( http://kickstarter.miles-space.com ).
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Blimp.
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=Cn_RQanyGOI]-
Thanks for the link, Interesting video because they managed to get the HV power supply on-board, something you could never do with a classic lifter like the one in the article.
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How about a funnel-like design where a couple “lifters” are placed sideways to accelerate the air into a spiraling motion before exiting something like a nozzle. One could start with just 3-4 sets of wire + foil placed inside a cone with both ends open to test. If results are promising, then a denser setup with 6-12 sets could be powered in sequence to accelerate the ions even more. Same power requirements but the output velocity should be much greater.
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Tried a funnel (aka 1/2 a 2-liter bottle) and got more lift than expected. I think the faster moving air on the inside made lower pressure and it acted like a wing of sorts: fast/low-pressure on “top”, normal/high-pressure on “bottom”. Tried adding a wire to the front of a styrofoam RC plane wing, and measured lift with a fan for air flow. 18% greater lift with the wire. That’s called a plasma actuator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_actuator
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How about a funnel-like design where a couple “lifters” are placed sideways to accelerate the air into a spiraling motion before exiting something like a nozzle, similar with the centrifugal designs of the bag-less vacuum cleaners. One could start with just 3-4 sets of wire + foil placed inside a cone with both ends open to test. If results are promising, then a denser setup with 6-12 sets could be powered in sequence to accelerate the ions even more. Same power requirements but the output velocity for the air should be much greater.
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Sorry about the double post. HAD shows me no feedback when posting.
Regarding the plasma actuator, there are multiple ways to accelerate ions: (1) centrifugal, where the electrodes go parallel with the axis of the cone and power is applied in sequence to pairs of electrodes, (2) multistage coaxial where the electrodes are perpendicular to the axis of the cone in a similar model with the Dyson air multipler fan to get more air to move. Which of these did you try?-
Just the most basic: wire ring inside the cone and foil near the exit nozzle. So, option 2, just really simple.
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I wonder if anyone has tried computer simulations to “evolve” a design of a lifter. It seems like its all known physics enough to be simulated?
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It is all known physics, just that according to the article above (http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/469/2154/20120623.full) we should be looking into increasing thrust to power ratio through engineering a better system. The authors claim “F/Pth is in the range 1.23–3.24 N kW−1 with a mean of 2.22 N kW−1” or “2.46 N kW−1” for a jet engine. In comparison, they claim “F/P degrades with increasing thrust (and so increasing voltage) consistent with equation (2.6). For example, for d=21 cm, F/P peaks at 110 N kW−1 (or averaging 68 N kW−1 for all power levels below 1 W), and reduces to 16 N kW−1 at 0.35 N of thrust, compared with values of approximately 2 N kW−1 for current aircraft engines (or approx. 4 N kW−1 if the core thermal efficiency is factored out). This does not imply that EHD thrusters are practical, but it does point to their potential for relatively high efficiency where efficiency is defined as thrust per unit power”.
So, it would be interesting to see some calculations for a switched radial/centrifugal design that would be mechanically much simpler than say a VASIMIR plasma engine and suitable for small satellites (e.g. cubesats) carrying a tiny amount of fuel. To counter any rotational issues, one could have a pair of funnels side by side or in a concentric design. Probably much better chance of success than the other EmDrive attempt posted here: https://hackaday.io/project/10166-flying-an-emdrive
Share or comment on this article: Is THIS the ‘Tic Tac’ UFO pilots are seeing? Advanced drones that can fly silently ‘without any signs of propulsion’ may be behind mystery sightings, experts say
America’s most secret airline – whose main destination is AREA 51: ‘Janet’ Airlines flies unmarked Boeing 737s out of Las Vegas Airport to mythical airbase that’s rumored to house crashed UFOs
Janet Airlines Boeing 737 planes travel to one of the most mysterious and talked-about destinations on Earth – Area 51, deep in the Nevada desert. There, the United States government develops its most secretive military technology. But the jets that take workers and government officials there are nondescript former passenger airliners – and are not believed to contain any particularly exciting features. A Janet plane is pictured, left, returning to Las Vegas airport shortly after takeoff earlier this year over a malfunction.
tldr Thrust data from forward, reverse, and null suggested that the system was consistently performing at 1.2±0.1 mN/kW, which was very close to the average impulsive performance measured in air…The current state-of–the-art thrust to power for a Hall thruster is on the order of 60 mN/kW. This is an order of magnitude higher than the test article evaluated during the course of this vacuum campaign; however, for missions with very large delta-v requirements, having a propellant consumption rate of zero could offset the higher power requirements. The 1.2 mN/kW performance parameter is over two orders of magnitude higher than other forms of “zero-propellant” propulsion, such as light sails, laser propulsion, and photon rockets having thrust-to-power levels in the 3.33–6.67 μN/kW (or 0.0033–0.0067 mN/kW) range.