A silent, electric plane inspired by Star Trek has no moving parts in its propulsion system

[teach1st]

A silent, electric plane inspired by Star Trek has no moving parts in its propulsion system
Washington Post, 11/21/2018

The first successful flight of the experimental plane ended badly. The plane, which weighs about 5.5 pounds and has a wingspan of 16 feet, flew steadily, but the researchers didn’t cut the power quickly enough, and it kept going until it crashed into the far wall of the gymnasium. The entire test flight, conducted last December at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, took about 15 seconds.

“That’s what you call an emotional journey, I guess, starting off with a successful flight and ending with a pile of plane,” said Steven Barrett, an MIT professor of aerospace engineering.

The researchers rebuilt the plane and then flew it nine more times, and on Wednesday, Barrett and his colleagues published in the journal Nature what might someday be viewed as a breakthrough paper in aeronautics. They have invented a solid-state airplane. It runs on electricity from batteries. It makes no noise. It generates no exhaust. Its propulsion system has no moving parts. It has no propellers, no turbines, not even a twisted rubber band.

This futuristic aircraft was inspired by Star Trek and the graceful journeys of the starship Enterprise, Barrett told reporters in a teleconference. He said that he’s a Trekkie and that about a decade ago, when he began pondering new forms of aircraft propulsion, he imagined that in the future there should be “planes that fly silently with no moving parts.”

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[RKP5637]

1. K&R!!! Cool!!! n/t

[TeamPooka]

2. the batteries are going to be huge to carry people or cargo.

But the batteries will improve, like microchips.

[teach1st]

3. I can barely make it through the published research

This is not my area of expertise, but the published research (available by clicking the link in the WaPost article - you can't get there by the link in the OP here) is interesting. As proof of concept, I think it's outstanding. Anyway, about those batteries:

To produce a sustained thrust of 3 N at the 40 kV design point and estimated thrust-to-power ratio of 6.25 NkW −1, a power system capable of delivering 500 W of output power was required, but at a very low weight. These weight constraints necessitated the design and construction of both a custom battery stack and a custom high-voltage power converter (HVPC) which stepped up the battery voltage to 40 kV. Our HVPC achieved a specific power of 1.2 kW kg −1 , 5–10 times higher than conventional power supplies at this voltage and power 15 . This was enabled by careful converter topology selection, by design optimization and by operating at a high switching frequency between 500 kHz and 700 kHz to minimize the weight of the capacitors and the magnetics.

[PJMcK]

4. Too complex for this musician

But will I be eligible for frequent flyer miles?

[Jeffersons Ghost]

6. K&R for a 5th rec; it's too complex for me too but apparently an interesting innovation

[panader0]

7. Are you a drummer?

Sorry, just kidding........

[PJMcK]

9. No, but...

...I once had a gig where I played Accordion!

[TeamPooka]

8. Like I said, big.

[Kaleva]

5. I could be a member of the 2 feet high club. As long as I got a full 15 secs.

[Blue_true]

10. When I read your synopsis and saw that electricity was used I guessed what they did.

When I read the article, I was partially right. I guess that they had somehow charged the wings and then ionized air under them. But they seem to have ionized air, then force the resulting ions to rush pass the wings toward a target (something held at an opposite polarity to the charges). The rush of the ions pass the wings produced lift.