The commonly used name for these EHD devices made by amateurs is "lifters".
The problem with their not being able to fly independently is the power
supplies are so heavy. Look for example at the lifter he

How to: "Lifter" Power Supply.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfdsEVjBpBU

Quite commonly the lifters weigh, and the thrust they can produce, is in the
range of grams but the power supplies weigh in the range of kilograms. So
how do you solve that problem?

Let me give an analogy. Many people are aware of the technical innovations
the Wright brothers made to be able to develop a successful flying machine.
They made their own wind tunnel. They tested various air foils to find
efficient ones of high lift. They developed a warping wing technique for
steering.

However, not as well known is the one key innovation they made for which all
those other innovations would have been worthless. When many scientists of
the time after doing a mathematical analysis asserted that no heavier-than
air flying machine could work, oddly enough they were *right*. But the
problem was, they were basing this on the power sources widely known at the
time, steam engines. But the steam engines were so inefficient they could
not supply sufficient power for their weight. They were too heavy.

Around the time of the Wright brothers though the internal combustion
gasoline engine was coming into use for automobiles, but they were still too
heavy for the Wright brothers use. So the one *key* innovation the Wright
brothers made was that they designed and built their OWN lightweight
internal combustion engine.

Now, back to the EHD propulsion method. The power supplies are too heavy, so
what can we do about that? Well, you can make them out of lightweight
materials. That's a possible route to follow, but most amateur and even
professional experimenters have used ready made power supplies or used ready
made parts to build them. The result is they are all pretty standard weight
for the power they put out.

But let's analyze this further, *why* are the power supplies so heavy? It
turns out the reason they are so heavy is the voltage needed for the ion
propulsion method is in the range of tens of thousands of volts, frequently
as high as 50,000 volts. This then requires heavy transformers to produce
voltage this high. Alright then, can we find a way to reduce the required
voltage?

Yes! It turns out if you reduce the diameter of the wires doing the
ionization of the air then the required voltage is reduced. In fact,
according to the math if the wires are at the nanoscale then the required
voltage might be reduced to only tens of volts instead of tens of thousands
of volts. For the small-scale lifters, if you used now wires at the
nanoscale, it may be they could be powered by a couple of 9-volt batteries
connected in series.

So that's the key point, for nanowires the voltage required for ionization
is severely reduced. This is the content of Peek's Law:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peek%27s_law


Bob Clark

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, nanotechnology can now fulfill its potential to revolutionize
21st-century technology, from the space elevator, to private, orbital
launchers, to 'flying cars'.
This crowdfunding campaign is to prove it:

Nanotech: from air to space.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/n...ce/x/13319568/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"John Larkin" wrote in message
...

On Tue, 1 Nov 2016 10:06:41 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Tuesday, November 1, 2016 at 8:09:00 AM UTC-7, Robert Clark wrote:
Nanotechnology makes possible an "ion drive" for air vehicles analogous
to
the famous ion drive of NASA's deep space probes:

Carbon nanotubes for "Ionic Wind" Craft or "Ionocraft".
Clark R*
Department of Mathematics, Widener University, USA
Review Article
Volume 1 Issue 2 / Received Date: September 26, 2016 / Published Date:
October 20, 2016
Abstract
Peter Thiel of the Founders Fund once famously said, "We wanted flying
cars,
and we got 140 characters."But nanotechnology now does make possible the
long desired flying cars. It's a different propulsion method though than
propellers or jets however. It's propulsion by electric fields known as
electrohydrodynamic propulsion (EHD). It works by ionizing air then using
electric fields to propel the charged air molecules rearward, thus
producing
thrust. It's quite analogous to the famous space ion drive of NASA. EHD
has
been known at least since the sixties. Its problem is, as with ion drive,
the thrust is so low. So far the EHD craft have not been able to lift
both
themselves and their power supplies. The ones made so far leave the power
supply on the ground and connect to the craft through power cables. But
the
equations of EHD suggest the thrust for the power required gets larger
for
thinner ionizing wires. In fact if the wires are at the nanoscale then
this
important thrust-to-power ratio can be a hundred times higher than for
the
craft constructed so far. This would be enough to lift the craft and the
power supply. This research is to prove what the mathematics suggests.
Note
that if it works then all propeller and rotor driven craft become
obsolete.
Also, intermediate range automobile travel would be taken over by the EHD
craft, so a large proportion of carbon-emissions would be eliminated,
replaced by this zero-emission travel method. In regards to space
propulsion, since EHD is so similar to ion drive, using components at the
nanoscale may also work to improve the thrust of ion drive. This would be
important to shortening the flight times of spacecraft using such drives.
This is important not just for robotic spacecraft but also satellites
that
use such ion drives to reach their final GEO destinations. As it is now,
the
ion drives used have such low thrust it takes months for such satellites
to
reach GEO, resulting in millions of dollars of lost revenue to the
satellite
companies. Being able to increase the thrust of these drives would reduce
the flight time, and therefore reduce this lost revenue.
Keywords: Electrohydrodynamic propulsion; Carbon nanotubes; Nanowires;
Ionic
wind; Ionocraft; Plasma drive
https://medwinpublishers.com/NNOA/vo...=23&issueId=63

Bob Clark




Do they work when it's raining / in humid environments?

Michael

No. And under even ideal conditions, they don't work for long.

Why do people invent (and press release) crazy sci-fi dreams that
ignore basic physics? There is a reason why helicopters have gas
turbine engines and giant fan blades... and horrendous fuel
consumption rates. Why don't they just use their jet engines to lift
the vehicle?


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com


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