Lifters: Anti-gravity or simply ION WIND?

[Phil]

I read that NASA tested a lifter in a vacuum and when it was pumped down to near-earth (about 60 miles altitude) it no longer flew. As the vacuum was bled off the lifter began flying again.. that would seem to prove that the lifter is a capacitor and was creating ion wind. In 1980 I built a negative ion generator using a car coil and a pulse-circuit to fire it at high frequency, off of the secondary I placed a high power diode and soldered a large sewing needle to this. When in use you could feel the ion wind up to about 2 feet high. If you held a paper above it it would "float" on the wind. In the dark you could see a nice blue glow coming off of the tip of the needle. Even at the time I told my wife if I made a light balsa-wood and paper 'vehicle' and used threads to keep it over the ion generator I could make people think I built an 'anti-gravity machine.....
I think LIFTERS are interesting but doesn't belong in antigravity catagory anymore more than a helicopter.   

[Kysmett]

This is all well and good, and I agree.  I think the application should be developed, however, as an atmospheric means of propulsion, if possible.  Looking at Tesla's flying machine(or what is available on it) it seems that he intended to use these same principles for direction control, coupled perhaps with a different means of maintaining altitude.

[hartiberlin]

Yes, the Lifters seem to have as the main propulsion the ion wind effect, but
some bigger units might also have somekind of Bielfeld-Brown effect.
This effect is a few ranges more weak, so it is hard to measure.

But I agree, this should be developed as a new helicopter replacement.

Regards, Stefan.

[Sojourner]

The tests I saw using the vacuum held an asymetrical capacitor within a confined area in those vacuums. On some, the walls of the vacuum chambers were nearly touching the test lifter/model.

The problem I see with that is that capacitance changes and so does the effect when other objects and/or conductive/obstructive materials are in the vicinity of lifter operation.  It's all too easy to just say. "when we pumped out the air, it stopped working".

No doubt lifter technology uses ion wind for thrust, but after toying with them a while I think there is more to it. The 'wind' just isn't enough.

I have a pre-theory, you might call it, in that the lifter gets thrust not only from directional speed of ions spittng from the anode, but that charged air within the magnetic field of the lifter becomes a sort of lace-work in the air and the speeding ions punch a hole through this lacework while speeding towards the cathode and they create tiny vortexes. These tiny vortexes help push up the lifter from the very sides of the cathode and they also, you might notice, prevent the ions from reaching and sticking to the cathode. On one side of these horizontal vortexes the friction "climbs the air" lacework. On the other side of the vortices, the friction rub against the cathode, pushing it in an upward direction.

On top of this, it is hard to think that other helping causes related to anti-gravity are not at work here. Any time you have a magnetic field, vortices and ions all in the same place, it's quite early to just say 'it's all wind'.

Truth is, NO ONE knows what all is involved in making a lifter work. We just have to leave it at that for now.

SOj
Soj

[Kysmett]

There has to be a way of measuring the thrust generated by the ion wind and subtract that from the tension on the wires that hold the lifter down.  If there is a significant difference, then yes you are right, there is another factor involved.

Can the ions be measured with a small annemmommeter (I could never spell that) or wind meter.  Or perhaps you could put a lifter on the scale, on short(like one inch) guy wires.  Then as it lifts off, if the ion wind is the main propellent, the thrust will push down on the scale, and you should either have an increase in weight, or no real net change.  Figure the forces involved, subtract the guy wire tension (vectorially of course) and you should end up with a number that represents the ACTUAL ammount of unknown force present.  Divide that by the perimeter of the lifter, and you get an overall unknown thrust per unit of lenght.

that might put this ion wind thing to bed once and for all.