Ion drive: The first flight
Why Hacker News recommends it
Linked as a quick demonstration of the ion plane in threads about silent aircraft and flying cars.
What it is
Nature video showing MIT researchers flying the first plane with no moving parts, powered by an ion drive that creates an ionic wind from high-powered electrodes. The 5m-wide craft flies across a sports hall.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2018 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Recommends c0n5pir4cy · 2022-06 · on “MIT engineers fly first-ever plane with no moving parts (2018)”
Older news as other people have mentioned, if you want to see how it works and see it flying here is a YouTube link: [this video]
Cites hnphillipj · 2018-11 · on “Silent and Simple Ion Engine Powers a Plane with No Moving Parts”
[this video] > But it is not a viable propulsion source. At least not on Earth for things larger than a meter or so. It's 5m wide
Cites qqn · 2019-08 · on “Flying cars”
Thanks for the commentary guys, it’s been fascinating churning over all this even more. Thoughts: - Safety is the same issue as always, only it’s being ironed out faster than before. Controlled vertical landings, 3D space, and redundancy help a lot. I don’t foresee many flying high enough to get really hurt. Maybe things like undercarriage cushions or redirected waterways underneath major traffic flows could help even more. - Noise cancellation tech is already out there, as well as near-silent aircraft without moving parts: [this video] - Main arteries will be less condensed, but much more, much smaller traffic will appear and that’s going to be a new problem. The death knell for intracity public
Cites vanderZwan · 2020-06 · on “UVB radiation was the Devonian-Carboniferous extinction kill mechanism”
Don't ion drives have ozone as a side-effect? Balloons with solar-powered ion drives might do the trick then - they don't even need to be lighter than air, the ion drive should give it enough thrust [this video] [LINK]