Silent electric aircraft boldly goes where no plane has gone before

AN ELECTRIC plane inspired by Star Trek that flies silently and has no moving parts has had its first test flight.

The 16ft battery-powered aircraft, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), uses an ionic wind system colliding electrically charged air molecules to provide thrust. It is hoped the technology could open the door on a new generation of emissions-free passenger aircraft and silent drones.

Prof Steven Barrett, lead researcher on the project, told The Daily Telegraph that the first flight, detailed in the journal Nature, was “super-exciting”. He said: “This is the first time an aeroplane with no moving parts has flown. It’s taken nine years of work to get here and it’s 100 years since the ionic wind was first discovered.”

In the tests, the unmanned craft, weighing just 5lb, managed sustained flights at 197ft in an MIT gym hall.

Prof Barrett was inspired to launch the project after watching Star Trek’s futuristic shuttle crafts that skimmed through space with “just a blue glow and silent glide”.

“This made me think, in the longterm future, planes shouldn’t have propellers and turbines,” he said.

Ionic wind, also known as electro aero dynamic thrust, was first identified in the Twenties and explored by engineers in the United States and at Britain’s Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough in the Sixties, but they were only able to produce very low levels of thrust, insufficient for flight.

To overcome this obstacle, the MIT test aircraft carries an array of thin wires strung beneath the front end of its wings. A high voltage current passes through the wires via a lightweight power converter and strips negatively charged electrons from surrounding air molecules. This produces a cloud of positively charged ionised air molecules that are attracted to another set of negatively charged wires at the back of the plane, like a giant magnet attracting iron filings,

As they flow towards the negative charge, the ions collide millions of times with other air molecules, creating the thrust for the aircraft.

Prof Barrett said it would take “several decades” for the technology to be advanced enough to power passenger aircraft, but unmanned aircraft with a wingspan of up to 80ft might be possible in the “nearer term”.

Lockheed Martin has reportedly already expressed interest in the project.