Made and tested one of Nauldin's ideas

[Sojourner]

While I was busy getting up the gumption to start building the power supply I have been accumilating parts for, I came across one of Nauldin's Lifter1.0 craft which I seems to overlook before.

It has foil doubled over foam to make the cathode thicker in volume. It also used a much narrower cathode....not much more than an inch.

Naudlin claimed 1.8 times more thrust!

I didn't have any foam that thin, so I used a little southern ingenuity and contructed a frame of balsa wood using Gorilla Glue which I have found to be lighter than and superior to any other bonding substance I have used for lifter models.

As the picture shows, I made a double rail system, which usually meant lifter failure to me in the past by being too heavy and even though I was also a tad worried (ok...more than a tad) about the weight of foil being doubled, the lifter worked! As  you may notice, I used vertical brace supports on the rails and horizontal braces at the corners.

As you will notice in the pics, mine is rather LARGE. Yes, it is about 27 inches per side! Power was from a monitor setup.

[Sojourner]

Here is the finished/flying one

[Paul-R]

I can't get the hang of the factors which affect lift performance.
For instance, voltage will, so, if k1, k2 are constants, we can say

F=k1 x V (very crudely since I can't find a proportional symbol)

Maybe the horizontal projected area of lower foil. If so, then we say:
F=k2 x A

Can anyone expand the list to include all variables, and correct mine if
they are wrong?

Paul.

[raburgeson]

You guys are ahead of me as I'm still fighting with power supplies.Noone has tested
skirts properly for cross sectional shapes or lenths that I know of.I'm busy tearing
down my last supply and getting ready for new coils, so I'm not ready to do
any such thing yet. You should wire wrap your cathode onto your frames though so
you can test with a variable gap simply by sliding it up and down the frame. (With
the power off off course). Has anyone tested a foil other than aluminium as I
haven't.

[raburgeson]

Soj, you didn't leave an email, so, first I hope you have had success in
moving, no broken items,all utilities up and running and so on.I thought
I might be able to give you something to think about while you are
unpacking, I'm sure you aren't ready to reassemble your lab yet.You
mentioned 3 1/2 miles an hour was a barrier in speed.Now stay with me,
if you scale the craft up to the size required to carry a man, x number of
times and figure out the scale speed 3.5 times x you might find you have
produced a sufficient first effort and may wish to produce a full sized
version.I'm fighting for voltage right now, power requirements are going
to be high for large examples of lifters and the wieght of the source is
critical.The source will affect the size, increase both the size and speed.
Just something to think about, I think 20 mph is enough to pursue the
object is to get a man up and fly a mile after that others will follow.
We're not the types to not share improvements after all. My goal is to
power a generator and I think you are closer to your goal than I am to
mine.Maybe you just need a couple encouraging words.