Empirical Earth · Gravity, Buoyancy & the Air

The silent aircraft with no moving parts — what MIT flew, and what it weighs

The claim

“MIT flew a silent craft with no moving parts on electric fields alone, so lift is electrical and gravity is not needed.”

What is true

◆ Refutation The aeroplane is real and the achievement is genuine.

What is measured

In 2018 a team at MIT flew a 5 m wingspan, 2.45 kg aeroplane about 60 m across a gymnasium at roughly 11 mph, using ionized air instead of a propeller. It is a new kind of thrust on an ordinary wing. Nothing about it levitates, and nothing about it bears on the shape of the Earth.

What would show this is wrong

a solid-state craft of this kind holding station in still air with no wings and no forward speed, or producing thrust in a hard vacuum where there is no air for it to push against.

Sources

  1. Xu, H. et al. (2018). Flight of an aeroplane with solid-state propulsion. Nature 563, 532–535. The MIT electroaerodynamic aircraft: 5 m wingspan, 2.45 kg, ten flights over roughly 60 m indoo link
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