The world's first engineless plane successfully took off

The world's first aircraft with no moving parts in its propulsion system successfully flew over 60 meters, making the idea of ​​flying without jet engines or propellers a reality,GuardianThe flight marked a breakthrough in “ionic wind” technology, which uses a strong electric field to generate charged nitrogen ions. The ions are fired from the back of the plane, creating thrust.

Steven Barrett, a professor of aeronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and lead author of the study published in the journal Nature, said the inspiration for the project came from his childhood science fiction movies.

The world's first aircraft with no moving parts.

"I was a big Star Trek fan. I thought there would be planes in the future that would glide smoothly without moving parts. But obviously there were no propellers or turbines like that. So I started looking at how to use physics to make planes with no moving parts a reality. I came up with the idea of ​​ionic wind, which I first studied in the 1920s," Barrett said.

“The idea didn’t get much traction at the time. When it was revisited in the 1950s, researchers concluded it wouldn’t be feasible in an aircraft. But I started looking into it and spent five years working with graduate students to improve our understanding of how to generate an ionic wind efficiently and how to optimize the technology,” Barrett said.

In the test plane, 600 watts of electricity flowed through a wire on the leading edge of the wing at 40,000 volts, enough to create "electron cascades" of electrically charged air molecules near the wire. The charged molecules then traveled along the electric field to a second wire behind the wing, colliding with electrically neutral air molecules along the way and transferring their energy. The neutral air molecules were shot out the back of the plane, providing thrust.

The result is a nearly silent, all-electric propulsion system that performs on par with conventional systems like jet engines. The prototype weighs just 5.5 pounds (2.45 kilograms). While its ultralight frame can lift an empty suitcase, it doesn’t have enough lift to carry you across a parking lot. None of its 10 test flights exceeded 200 feet (60 meters).

Still, the fact that the plane can glide through the air on its own electrostatically generated wind at 4.8 meters per second still marks a milestone in the development of the vehicle. As the speed increases, the plane uses less energy. At speeds of around 300 meters per second, the plane is 50 percent more efficient.

The successful test flight of the aircraft, dubbed “Version Two,” was largely due to its design being as thin and light as possible. Despite its light weight, the aircraft still managed to fit a 5-meter wingspan, batteries, and power converter.

The MIT team hopes to increase the plane’s range and speed in the near future, largely by scaling up the machine. Potential near-term applications for the design include unmanned drones. In the longer term, electric aircraft could pave the way for zero-emission flights, helping to reduce emissions from the global aviation industry.

An Khang