The future of flying?

Right out of Star Trek, engine-less aircraft powered by ‘ionic wind’

INSPIRED by Star Trek, a British inventor’s revolutionary aircraft glides through the sky without jets, rotors or propellers.

The machine – details of which were revealed yesterday – has just completed its historic first flight.

It could prove to be the future of air travel, bringing to an end the noise nightmare of living under a flight path. And, unlike conventional aircraft, it produces no emissions.

It has no moving parts, instead using something called ionic wind to travel and it is all but silent – just like the shuttle spaceships in TV’s Star Trek.

The show was watched avidly as a child by the leader of the team behind the new aircraft, Cambridge graduate Steven Barrett.

‘It made me think, in the longterm future, planes shouldn’t have propellers and turbines,’ said Dr Barrett. ‘They should be more like the shuttles in Star Trek that have just a blue glow and silently glide.’

His 16ft aeroplane made its flight indoors – at a gym at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where 36-year-old Dr Barrett is a professor of aeronautics.

In tests, the unmanned aircraft, which weighs only 5lb, managed to fly 197ft at an average height of 18in. It flew at around 11mph.

But its inventors believe that, like the 1903 experiments of the Wright brothers, such small beginnings will transform the face of aviation. Ionic wind propulsion could be employed to power military drones, making them harder to detect.

The technology could later be paired with conventional propulsion systems to produce more fuel efficient hybrid passenger planes.

Dr Barrett, who attended the state Compton School in Finchley, north London, said: ‘This is the first- ever sustained flight of a plane with no moving parts in the propulsion system.

‘This has potentially opened new and unexplored possibilities for aircraft which are quieter, mechanically simpler, and do not emit combustion emissions.’

The test aircraft – known as Version Two because Version One refused to fly – was described in the science journal Nature.

It carries an array of thin wires under the front of its wings.

These wires, which carry a positive charge of 20,000 volts, strip electrons – which have a negative charge – from air molecules. The cloud of positively charged molecules thus formed then rush towards negatively-charged wires at the back of the aircraft, pushing other air molecules with them, creating thrust.

One of the biggest challenges was designing a power supply that would generate enough volts from the plane’s battery. The team is working on ways of producing more ionic wind with less voltage.

Dr Barrett said: ‘It took a long time to get here.

‘Going from the basic principle to something that actually flies was a long journey. Now the possibilities for this kind of propulsion system are viable.’