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Scientists Create Plane That Can Fly Without Fuel
Jessica
11.29.18

In the Star Trek universe, the ion drive was the stepping stone to warp drive, which really allowed characters to go where no one had gone before.

That’s why when scientists posted a Letter in the world-renowned journal Nature last week on a new propulsion system, all true nerds stood at attention.

(For those of you wondering why it’s called a “letter” instead of an article – Nature accepts both types of contributions, but letters are shorter and meant to grab the attention of scientists in other fields so everyone can work together on new discoveries.)

The team that published the piece is led by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and hail from the departments of Aeronautics and Astronautics as well as Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. These folks are serious business.

In their letter, the team describes how it created an electro-aerodynamic-powered plane.

Don’t worry if you don’t know exactly what that means. – the impressive part is that their plane doesn’t need propellers or jet engines like the ones we use now. Instead, it uses what’s called solid-state propulsion. There are no moving parts and it’s potentially eco-friendly because it doesn’t require fossil fuels.

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While we’ve had airplanes for over 100 years, we’ve never been able to fly them without using lots of fuel. One major benefit of this new type of plane would be no emissions to pollute the atmosphere. Seems like a win for us and the planet!

And geeks and researchers alike are serious about their Star Trek comparisons. In a video posted by MIT, the lead scientist Steven Barret even says:

“The future of flight shouldn’t be things with propellers and turbines and should be more like what you see in Star Trek, with a kind of blue glow and something that silently glides through the air.”

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In fact, the scientists posted a video available on YouTube that explains the research, which we love, since it allows non-scientists to enjoy the discovery process. You can see it below.

For now, the test plane only has a wingspan of 16 feet and weighs about 5.4lbs, so it’s certainly not fitting any passengers. But we know that all successful experiments start with a smaller test version and the goal is to scale up.

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If you’re ready to get technical, the plane is powered by thin electrodes running across the front and back – the front is charged to positive 20,000 volts and the back to negative 20,000 volts – this creates a strong electric field.

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The electric field generates charged ions, which then produce an ionic wind as they are expelled from the back of the plane. The important part here is that this ion action is what gives the plane thrust.

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The Guardian
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The Guardian

In the 10 test flights performed, researchers got the plane to fly 200 feet in 12 seconds. As they refine the system, the speed and efficiency will increase, eventually surpassing the speed of passenger jets. Theoretically, it could reach 670 miles per hour at just 50% efficiency.

For those who have their sights set on space, we do use a similar type of ion technology on spacecrafts, but the big difference is that those still require fuel (and lots of it!) to produce thrust. The MIT plane, even though it’s in a prototype stage, does not. It just needs those wires across the front and back and a lithium-polymer battery.

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You won’t be buying an airline ticket on one of these planes any time soon, but the team hopes we get there eventually and that’s why they demonstrated their research to the rest of the world in the hopes that others could help advance the technology.

Right now, the biggest impediment reaching the altitude we would need for a passenger plane. In the short term, this technology is only applicable to lower-flying aircrafts like drones. But that’s why we keep funding science – to perfect and expand these types of advances.

Not everything published in scientific journals is made available to the public, but this paper is free to read on the Nature website. If you want to practice your engineering-speak, take a look here. And don’t get discouraged – these people have studied a field almost no one else knows about for decades and are writing to their peers. Just have some fun with it.

Watch the video below.

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