Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Christine Y. He via MIT

Silent plane with no moving parts makes 'historic' flight

The team was able to fly the new plane a distance of 55 metres at a speed of 4.8 metres-per-second.

THE BLUE GLOWING jets of science fiction spacecraft came a step closer to reality today as US physicists unveiled the world’s first solid-state aeroplane powered in flight by supercharged air molecules.

More than a century on from the Wright brothers’ first artificial flight, scientists hailed the “historic” test of the new technology, which could eventually slash greenhouse-gas emissions from aviation. 

Ever since Orville and Wilbur Wright’s momentous glide in the winter of 1903, aircraft have been driven by propellers or jets that must burn fuel to create the thrust and lift needed for sustained flight. 

A team of experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology managed to unlock a process known as electroaerodynamics, previously never seen as a plausible way to power an aircraft.

They were able to fly the new plane, with a wingspan of five metres, a distance of 55 metres at a speed of 4.8 metres-per-second. 

That’s hardly supersonic, but the implications of this unprecedented mode of flight could be stratospheric.

“The future of flight shouldn’t be things like propellers and turbines,” said Steven Barrett, who designed the prototype.

It should be more like what you see in Star Trek with a kind of blue glow and something that silently glides through the air.

nature video / YouTube

At first glance, the plane itself doesn’t look lightyears away from other renewable aircraft, such as the Solar Impact II craft that in 2015-16 used energy from the Sun to fly around the world.

Unlike Solar Impact, Barrett’s plane doesn’t have any propellers or solar panels – or any moveable parts whatsoever. 

Instead of engines, it is powered by a system comprising two main sections. 

At the front of the plane sit a series of parallel electrodes made up of lightweight wires that produce an enormous voltage – +20,000v – supercharging the air around it and splitting away negatively charged nitrogen molecules known as ions. 

At the plane’s rear are rows of aerofoils set to -20,000v. The ions automatically move from a positive to negative charge, dragging with them air particles that create the so-called “ionic wind” to provide the aircraft with lift. 

‘Something we never knew possible’

The technology to create ionic wind has been around since the 1960s, but it was previously thought nowhere near efficient enough to prove useful to aeronautics. 

The team not only showed that it was possible for ion-driven craft to fly but also – due to the relative lack of drag created by the electrodes – predicted that efficiency would increase in lockstep with speed, potentially opening the way for bigger, faster planes in future.

“It’s clearly very early days: but the team at MIT have done something we never previously knew was possible, in using accelerated ionised gas to propel an aircraft,” said Guy Gratton, aerospace engineer and visiting professor at Cranfield University, who was not involved in the study.

Barrett said he believed the current prototype could be scaled up “a significant amount” but cautioned that there may be a limit to how much propulsion the technique can produce. 

“We don’t yet know if there is such a limit and we will certainly try to scale up as much as possible,” he said. 

I don’t yet know if you’ll see our vehicle carrying people any time soon but obviously I’d be very excited if that was the case.

Commercial applications

He told AFP that the technology could be used on the skin of commercial aircraft, reducing drag and therefore the energy needed to power modern passenger jets.

“This would be much more efficient than the current situation where you have concentrated engines that generate thrust, which have to fight against a large passive airframe that generates drag,” he said.

In an editorial, the journal Nature, which published the study, said its success would encourage other sectors to re-visit technology that was long thought to be confined to sci-fi films.

It listed possible military applications including the development of silent drones and aircraft, and engines with no infrared signal and thus impossible to detect.

The prototype flight “will stimulate both awe and anxiety”, it said. 

A hundred and fifteen years ago, Nature published a short news item on the Wright brothers’ “first successful achievement of artificial flight”.

Barrett and the team noted a pleasing parallel with their revolutionary test and the one that sparked the aerial age: both flights lasted all of 12 seconds.

© – AFP 2018

Author
View 31 comments
Close
31 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy here before taking part.
Leave a Comment
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Robin Pickering
    Favourite Robin Pickering
    Report
    Nov 21st 2018, 10:59 PM

    All well and good but does it play a jingle if it lands on time?

    125
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Elma Phudd
    Favourite Elma Phudd
    Report
    Nov 21st 2018, 11:27 PM

    @Robin Pickering: yes, and if it’s an Irish route, we’ll all give a more than slightly embarrassing round of applause at the end of the runway.

    43
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute SPQH
    Favourite SPQH
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 12:02 AM

    @Elma Phudd: that actually happens in many countries, not just Ireland nor “Irish routes”.

    50
    See 1 more reply ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John Ryan
    Favourite John Ryan
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 1:38 AM

    @Elma Phudd: In fairness I think the applause after a Ryanair flight is just to congratulate the pilot for arriving at the intended destination and not at some airport a three hour bus ride away…

    33
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Anthony Horan
    Favourite Anthony Horan
    Report
    Nov 21st 2018, 11:24 PM

    Great to see a cutting edge engineering story in the news. Well done to all the under achievers at MIT!

    62
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Ken Loughman
    Favourite Ken Loughman
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 12:41 AM

    @Anthony Horan: Is that you, Sheldon?

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Leo Latorre
    Favourite Leo Latorre
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 12:55 AM

    @Ken Loughman: nah… Sheldon wouldn’t applaude anyone or anything out of the MIT

    12
    See 1 more reply ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Ken Loughman
    Favourite Ken Loughman
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 1:32 AM

    @Leo Latorre: I’d think that he’d have learned enough about sarcasm to “applaud” them. He would certainly have a dim enough view of MIT to consider the staff there as underachievers

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute European Bob
    Favourite European Bob
    Report
    Nov 21st 2018, 10:59 PM

    It’s no Spruce Moose.

    57
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Paul Furey
    Favourite Paul Furey
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 1:30 AM

    @European Bob: or even a Spruce Goose

    36
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Tom Tom
    Favourite Tom Tom
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 8:37 AM

    @European Bob:
    “Hop In!”
    “But sir, it’s just a mod…”
    “I said: HOP IN.”

    12
    See 1 more reply ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John Thomas
    Favourite John Thomas
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 12:40 PM

    @Paul Furey: Spruce Kabose even?

    2
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Paul Devlin
    Favourite Paul Devlin
    Report
    Nov 21st 2018, 10:59 PM

    Bit of paper, fold it a few times, there you go

    53
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Chemical Brothers
    Favourite Chemical Brothers
    Report
    Nov 21st 2018, 11:37 PM

    The mans excitement & enthusiasm shines through in the video. Well done.

    39
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Pixie McMullen
    Favourite Pixie McMullen
    Report
    Nov 21st 2018, 10:57 PM

    Sitting in between an ionic storm of plus 20,000 volts and minus 20,000 volts, be grand, sure you’d probably only get off with 3 eyes and 3rd degree burns or something

    32
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute David McShite
    Favourite David McShite
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 12:09 AM

    It would have traveled further but they only had a 55 metre extension lead.

    27
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute FlopFlipU
    Favourite FlopFlipU
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 2:48 AM

    @David McShite: It would get you as far as the pub

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Alan Biddulph
    Favourite Alan Biddulph
    Report
    Nov 21st 2018, 10:59 PM

    Silent planes means it will be much harder to get away with stealth farting.

    43
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute European Bob
    Favourite European Bob
    Report
    Nov 21st 2018, 11:04 PM

    @Alan Biddulph: Is there a scientific reason why I always blow my hole much more at 30,000 feet than I do on the ground?

    19
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Alan Biddulph
    Favourite Alan Biddulph
    Report
    Nov 21st 2018, 11:07 PM

    @European Bob: I blame it on the dodgy full Irish breakfast and tight seat belt/turbulence. It’s a recipe for success.

    16
    See 2 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Conor King
    Favourite Conor King
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 1:44 AM

    Gases expand at lower air pressure. Aircraft cabin pressure is set at approx 8000ft (rather than ground level). Physics.

    15
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute European Bob
    Favourite European Bob
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 7:01 AM

    @Conor King: Thanks Conor. So that’s why the lid always looks like it’s about to explode off my pringles!

    5
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute sequoia
    Favourite sequoia
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 8:13 AM

    Ummmm… technically aren’t ALL the parts moving if it’s flying???

    12
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute iBob101
    Favourite iBob101
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 6:16 AM

    I wonder if it’ll short circuit if it rains?

    7
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Darren Byrne
    Favourite Darren Byrne
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 10:31 AM

    @iBob101: No its stationary it just moves the universe around it.

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
    Favourite Fiona Fitzgerald
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 5:24 PM

    It would be funny if the ideal shape turned out to be a turtle.

    1
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute John Quill
    Favourite John Quill
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 7:16 AM

    I can see it , 20 years down the road some beardy hipsters saying ‘jet power flight sounded better’

    10
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Ken Loughman
    Favourite Ken Loughman
    Report
    Nov 22nd 2018, 12:43 AM

    It would be great if they could use this tech to create anti-grav lifters – now that would be something.

    8
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.

Leave a commentcancel

 
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds