Plane with no moving parts achieves flight

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have announced they have achieved flight with an airplane that has no moving parts, using an "ion drive" that could allow drones to be totally silent.

"Instead of propellers or turbines, the light aircraft is powered by an 'ionic wind' – a silent but mighty flow of ions that is produced aboard the plane, and that generates enough thrust to propel the plane over a sustained, steady flight," the institute has announced.

"Unlike turbine-powered planes, the aircraft does not depend on fossil fuels to fly. And unlike propeller-driven drones, the new design is completely silent," MIT said.

"This is the first-ever sustained flight of a plane with no moving parts in the propulsion system," testified Steven Barrett, associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. "This has potentially opened new and unexplored possibilities for aircraft which are quieter, mechanically simpler, and do not emit combustion emissions."

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The institute released a video explaining the accomplishment:

The technology uses high powered electrodes to ionize and accelerate air particles, creating an "ionic wind," the institute said, which was successful in powering a craft some 16 feet wide for a flight of about 200 feet.

"Since the first airplane took flight over 100 years ago, virtually every aircraft in the sky has flown with the help of moving parts such as propellers, turbine blades, and fans, which are powered by the combustion of fossil fuels or by battery packs that produce a persistent, whining buzz," the institute's report said.

Barrett expects that the process could be used for drones, and would eliminate noise, or combined with more conventional systems to create fuel-efficient, hybrid passenger plans.

He explained he was inspired by "Star Trek," where science fiction displays shuttles skimming around with no apparent moving parts.

"This made me think, in the long-term future, planes shouldn’t have propellers and turbines," Barrett explained. "They should … have just a blue glow and silently glide."

MIT explained Barrett has worked on the idea for years, and he explains how his breakthrough came: "It was a sleepless night in a hotel when I was jet-lagged, and I was thinking about this and started searching for ways it could be done. I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations and found that, yes, it might become a viable propulsion system."

Many years later, the tests are under way.

The aircraft being used is about five pounds and carries a web of thin wires at the front edge of the multi-layer wing. They are charged positively. At the back of the wings are other wires, serving as negative electrodes.

Inside the plane is a stack of lithium-polymer batteries, which supply 40,000 volts to positively charge the wires.

"Once the wires are energized, they act to attract and strip away negatively charged electrons from the surrounding air molecules, like a giant magnet attracting iron filings. The air molecules that are left behind are newly ionized, and are in turn attracted to the negatively charged electrodes at the back of the plane," MIT's report said.

"As the newly formed cloud of ions flows toward the negatively charged wires, each ion collides millions of times with other air molecules, creating a thrust that propels the aircraft forward."

MIT quoted Franck Plouraboue, of the Institute of Fluid Mechanics in Toulouse, France, explaining the new design is a "big step" toward demonstrating the feasibility of ion wind propulsion.

"The strength of the results are a direct proof that steady flight of a drone with ionic wind is sustainable," he said. "[Outside of drone applications], it is difficult to infer how much it could influence aircraft propulsion in the future. Nevertheless, this is not really a weakness but rather an opening for future progress, in a field which is now going to burst."