There is a comment from Pubpeer [0] on this research [1] if anyone is curious:<p>"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.<p>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."<p>[0] <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0707-9" rel="nofollow">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0707-9</a><p>[1] <a href="https://pubpeer.com/publications/020C19C112F2605CEC4B34CA320AAC" rel="nofollow">https://pubpeer.com/publications/020C19C112F2605CEC4B34CA320...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GijJmIz1G7U" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GijJmIz1G7U</a>
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.<p>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.<p>Then they feed by hovering so accurately that they can reliably thread a 1/8" beak into a moving 1/4" target.<p>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.<p>They can also fly 30mph in level flight, which in body lengths / second is ~4x times faster than an SR-71.<p>[0] US nickels weigh 5 grams, for comparison.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.kqed.org/science/28759/what-happens-when-you-put-a-hummingbird-in-a-wind-tunnel" rel="nofollow">https://www.kqed.org/science/28759/what-happens-when-you-put...</a>
This was done in 50's and 60's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion-propelled_aircraft" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion-propelled_aircraft</a><p>> 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.
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!
Older news as other people have mentioned, if you want to see how it works and see it flying here is a YouTube link: <a href="https://youtu.be/boB6qu5dcCw?t=85" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/boB6qu5dcCw?t=85</a>
<i>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><p>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.
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.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzZy1Aqleno" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzZy1Aqleno</a>
This is awesome.<p>I am disappointed at the "MIT are boasting, nothing really to show" comments here.<p>This is not Earth shattering. But it is an achievement worthy of our respect.<p>This vehicle is self contained, has no external power supply, unlike all the other examples quoted.<p>I am very impressed
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.<p>0 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramjet" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramjet</a>
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.<p>I’ve also been curious about using very large-area weak ionizers for future zeppelins.<p>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.
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.
Does this work because of the mass difference between electrons and protons?<p>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.
I think a lot of the comments in here are basically just annoyed.<p>Kids and nerds were building stuff like this as science fair projects for <i>years</i>.<p>Mythbusters even made one of these on their TV show: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCiU96rJJoo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCiU96rJJoo</a>
Could they have used a Solid State Piezoelectric Fan instead?<p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn6qVv9HzHc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn6qVv9HzHc</a>
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.<p>EDIT: ok this one is more convincing <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iihprC5Huf4" rel="nofollow">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iihprC5Huf4</a>
seems like no video of taking off by itself, they seem to have some catapult/string to take off, so if it can't take off it's not really a plane, just glider