Ionised air to power flying saucers

Ionised air to power flying saucers

www.abc.net.au

A new wingless, saucer-shaped aircraft is scheduled to take to the skies - just don't call it a UFO.

Professor Subrata Roy, a scientist at the University of Florida, calls his aircraft a "wingless electromagnetic air vehicle," or WEAV, and if it flies he says it could usher in a new age of aircraft design.

"If this works and we are able to fly it, this will be a quantum shift in how we see flying objects," says Roy.

The WEAV will use a physical phenomenon known as magnetohydrodynamics - used by Captain Marko Ramius's submarine in the movie The Hunt For Red October.

The fictional submarine engine had no moving or rotating parts. Instead it used a series of electrodes that ionised the water and pushed it out the back of the submarine, silently propelling it forward.

Whether a craft moves through water or air, the principle is the same.

(visit the link for the full news article)

An interesting find, I wonder if this technology been tested is what people have been seeing in the skys.

www.abc.net.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 3-7-2008 by beefeater]

This is interesting I do agree. The fact that it doesnt go in space hurts but hey this may be a start. At least we have people thinking outside the box.

I've seen videos of home made models that worked on the same concept. They were basically balsa wood, tin foil and a small electrical charge. It works on the same theory as those "Ionic Air Purifiers", as the air is charged it passes through the ionizing element creating lift.

I've just always assumed the ionizing force was too weak to lift larger objects. What I've seen were small triangles about a foot long max

reply to post by beefeater


I think this could potentially,like the article said,change the world of areospace.It is encouraging to see some of these more exotic technologies develop and emerge mainstream.

I agree i have seen these lifters too, i thought they could only lift small weights but then I found this...
en.wikipedia.org...

"Yamato 1, is a boat built in the early 1990s by Japanese conglomerate "The Mitsubishi Group" through their subsidiary company Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd at Wadasaki-cho Hyogo-ku, Kobe. It uses a magnetohydrodynamic drive, driven by a liquid helium-cooled superconductor, and can travel at 15 km/h (8 knots)."

So if you can power a boat with a magnetohydrodynamic drive then flying wouldnt be so hard.