August 18th, 2005
Gravity Powered Aircraft
Brian Berris
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
Imagine a world that used the everlasting power of gravity to power aircrafts. No more combusting of fuels and fire dangers when flying. No more polutants being emitted from jet engines. This technology is well on its way. Not to say you’ll be seeing these things in the next couple of years, but in the not to distant future. A future where gasoline is so expensive, only the rich use it.
“Former nuclear designer, Robert D. Hunt of Hunt Aviation Corp has come up with a new ‘gravity powered aircraft technology’ that he claims can accomplish sustained fuel-less flight. Hunt has designed a new hybrid aircraft: a ‘gravity-powered aircraft’ which is a fixed wing, ridged skin airplane made of lightweight and modern composite materials. By October 2003, Hunt Aviation Corp had already begun the first phase of prototype construction, assembling a consortium of aviation manufacturers and suppliers that wish to support the revolutionary aircraft technology.”
“The ‘Gravity-Plane’, as Hunt Aviation likes to call it, uses gravity’s dual properties - buoyancy which creates an upward motion in order to gain altitude, and gravity acceleration which creates a forward and downward gliding motion. The two motions combined form the heart of Hunt’s new gravity powered technology, a technology that could make for a much healthier and cleaner environment.”
Source:http://www.gizmag.com
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rog says:
At least it doesn’t say anything about perpetual motion, cold fusion or Area 51.
August 18th, 2005 at 4:28 am
allen says:
…or size, performance, cost, prototype or timeline. If the thing has to be a thousand feet long before it’ll work then it might just as well be a thousand miles long.
August 18th, 2005 at 5:10 am
Tom says:
Is it April already?
Instead of using gravity to fight uhh… gravity, why not use the wind instead?
put an undriven propeller on the front of the plane that is turned by the wind passing the plane as the plane flys… couple this to a rear push-prop using a gear ratio to increase the speed; et viola! continuous acceleration
August 18th, 2005 at 6:00 am
John says:
There ain’t no free lunch, so says the second law of thermodynamics.
August 18th, 2005 at 7:23 am
Alice says:
But isn’t that called a glider?
August 18th, 2005 at 7:41 am
Lockergnome's Tech News Watch says:
Gravity Powered Aircraft Requires No Fuel During Flight
Former nuclear designer, Robert D. Hunt of Hunt Aviation Corp has come up with a new “gravity powered aircraft technology” that he claims can accomplish sustained fuel-less flight. Hunt has designed a new hybrid aircraft: a “gravity-powered aircraft…
August 18th, 2005 at 7:50 am
Oldster says:
When you’re done investing in this gravity buoyancy plane give me a call. I have a bridge for sale in Brooklyn. Great, high traffic opportunity.
August 18th, 2005 at 8:27 am
Tom says:
Alice-
It is a glider. It’s also a blimp(or airship).
What makes it new is that it appears to alternate between these roles in order to ascend or descend.
This behavior makes it much like a submarine.
Where the problem lies is the input energy required to create the vacuum in the float chambers.
It looks like the idea is that they pump out the float chambers on the ground in order to float the plane (airship) up to several miles in altitude, then they can open the float chambers and use their glide ratio to travel before landing (unpowered glider)
This isn’t fuelless, it merely leaves the fuel consumption on the ground.
This can’t succeed, too limited, too dangerous.
August 18th, 2005 at 8:57 am
allen says:
This exact idea is already in use in autonomous underwater vehicles. The can control their bouyancy and glide up and down over, maybe, thousands of miles on almost no power. I found a story at Wired:
http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,62435,00.html?tw=wn_story_related
Thing is, water’s 500-times denser then air and that has a huge impact on what you can and can’t do. This idea works real well underwater. How it works in air is not at all obvious.
My feeling is that a gadget like this’ll have all the vulnerabilities and shortcomings of dirigibles with none of their strengths.
August 18th, 2005 at 10:09 am
Chad Pyle says:
Perhaps we should determine if Newtonian Gravity even exists first; talk about defying laws of physics.
August 18th, 2005 at 12:14 pm
rog says:
Just a minute. Dirigibles have strenghts? Other then providing their own emergency lighting while crashing?
August 18th, 2005 at 1:15 pm
David P says:
From the look of it, how many people could it possibly hold? Or how much cargo?
Not a lot is my guess.
August 18th, 2005 at 11:42 pm
Don Bill says:
After reading the invective of last 12 reductionist de-bunker wannabes, I’m reminded of the apparant universality of mindless clinging to the status-quo. Regardless how refreshingly innovative and socially and environmentally positive a concept appears, it inevitably brings the narrow of mind out of the woodwork.
August 21st, 2005 at 7:58 am
R. E. says:
Let me see, (1) man will never have flying machines; (2) automobiles, a passing fad; (3) man on the moon - don’t make me laugh! The ETs and UFOniums must be busting a gut with laughter!
August 26th, 2005 at 10:47 am
Greg W says:
Did any of you actually read this or look at the technology they need?
It’s not some sci-fi future dream, just an engineering challenge. They float up like a blimp then compress the helium starting with the forward section tilting it forward where it becomes a glider.
The speed depends on the altitude. As they glide forward (down) they use vertical turbines(windmills), which have already been successfully tested to compress regular air that they push out of turbines as propulsion.
When they dip to their lower altitude they reinflate the blimp portion while maintaining forward momentum, giving free lift and a much faster trip than typical blimps get even in the slowed state.
This is a cycle. The estimated average speed of the flight is what I’d like to know, but so far it’s sounding pretty good.
What I’ve read is that the size is roughly 50% increase for the number of passengers. That doesn’t cross over into straight bad news because this can land vertically. This ship doesn’t require a landing strip at all and their plans are to make it possible to land over water.
Even if the trip took twice or three times as long in flight time they could land the planes in a field with no risk of collision or death. They couldn’t take this and crash it into anything because there’d be no fuel on board.
I can’t see it challenging conventional planes for long distances but the ease of use seem like it’d be worth it for medium to short trips.
January 26th, 2006 at 10:42 am
Graham Nayler says:
This is an incredibly novel concept and the technology to make it work already exists; it’s not some outlandish sci fi dream despite what many of the previous posters think (they obviously haven’t done the slightest bit of research on it check out the website http://www.fuellessflight.com/ if you have a brain you’ll read the technology section you’ll learn that the fundamental theory is sound scientifically).
It could potentially transport large amounts of cargo and/or people essentially anywhere in the world. I must disagree with the last poster in that I feel it’s long range capability is among its MOST desirable features as it can literally go around the world without having to stop, although admittedly it would not go as fast as a jet but that disadvantage is offset in a number of ways not the least of which is by reducing COST dramatically as no expensive jet fuel would be neccessary.
I laughed at Tom when he said it’ss too limited and too dangerous, how exactly is it AT ALL limited or dangerous? It is in fact infinitely SAFER than any airplane in use today for a number of reasons and is UNLIMITED in its potential uses (there are many besides simple transportation, Dr. Hunt has sold the rights for transportation uses but has retained the rights for other uses because he knows how valuable they are potentially). Oh yeah and Tom your continuous acceleration idea is retarded I’ve concluded that you have no brain. As for your statement that the problem lies in producing the energy in the input energy needed to create the vacuum you are obviously not aware of Dr. Hunt’s innovative vertical axis wind turbine which produces twice as much energy as conventional horizontal axis turbines, plenty of energy to fill the compressed air tanks neccessary for takeoff or the vacuum pumping (which is supplemented by helium gas bags as a redundant SAFETY measure, which I would point out jets do not have engines go out on a jet YOU DIE, something goes wrong with the vacuum chamber on this plane and you safely float down to Earth via helium).
Oh BTW rog, yes dirigibles have strengths not the least of which is the ability to transport HUGE cargoes of 1000 tons compared to a “heavy lifter” cargo jet which only carries 17 tons (albeit much faster).
In response to John, you’re right their ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, but THIS IDEA DOES NOT VIOLATE THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS it merely takes advantage of two well known properties of gravity caused by mass differentials BUOYANCY and DOWNWARD ACCELERATION read a frickin science book and open your mind, do you also think solar and wind power are “free lunches”.
This idea CAN WORK it’s just a matter of engineering and manufacture, I am an engineering student and I know a thing or two about what it takes to build something like this (it is really just a matter of money and time, enough of those two things and the brightest minds in the world could definitely build this thing before the end of the decade).
It is really sad how many people dismiss this incredibly innovative idea offhand because they are so close minded. Oh well people thought the Wright brothers and Nikola Tesla were crazy too but that didn’t stop them from developing the technologies of airplanes and alternating current generators upon which the 20th century was built, I doubt any of you naysayers will have any effect on this 21st century technological innovation either (BTW FYI the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics is quite interested in the technology and they aren’t the only ones the army is also interested in possible military applications most notably as a UAV mothership look at the news before you write this off important people are taking notice http://www.fuellessflight.com/news.htm) the thermodynamic process was presented in a technical paper to the AIAA on September 26th, 2005 the finished manuscript is available in the AIAA Journal.
In closing I would suggest that those of you who have your doubts about this (it’s good to be skeptical I doubted it at first too which is why I did a little thing I like to call RESEARCH along with some CRITICAL THINKING you should try it sometime) go check it out, the guy who came up with this idea holds over 50 US patents and he used to design nuclear reactor components for the U.S.S Nimitz Aircraft Carrier so he happens to knows a thing or two about what he’s talking about.
March 18th, 2006 at 1:47 am
Rich says:
great stuffs
March 21st, 2006 at 4:19 am
Earth Wind And Fire says:
Dave
Interesting topic… I’m working in this industry myself and I don’t agree about this in 100%, but I added your page to my bookmarks and hope to see more interesting articles in the future
September 8th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
Jules says:
What is with you people (those who are so ready to say… ah, nothing special)? For all those who jumped in to poo-poo it, what have you done? I’m interested in innovation, it often comes from unnexpected places. One idea and kick off another. Jeesh!
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June 21st, 2007 at 5:26 am