The Magic of Flight

MDH powered flightsuit

On the order of a disclaimer, while the following is factual, problems exist in the production of a wearable suit, with expandable wings that allows unfettered flight.  No such suit has ever, to my knowledge, been proposed.  If such a device were engineered, it would produce a soldier of legendary proportions, who could fly to and from battle, attack from the air,and due to the suit being fashioned of a graphene-boron nanocomposite, would be extremely hard to damage. The chitin matrix of graphene and boron, with added photovoltaic properties, (as described below) has not even been created, although the prerequisite substances exist.  So, if you want to create the 'next big thing' in warfare, please feel free to use this as a proposal. Just remember, an engineer or two is going to hate you very much for this undertaking.

    If you ionize air, using dielectric discharge plasma, it will function as a suitable fluid for an engine.  The magnetic fields can be supplied by superconducting magnets, thereby creating a 'bladeless' air movement system.  If the amount of air moved prove large enough, we have an aircraft who's actual engine has no moving parts and is powered electrically.

   In the presence of crossed electric and magnetic fields, charged particles in a plasma experience a drift in the  ${\bf E}\;\times \;{\bf B}$ direction. Their transport in the direction parallel to the electric field is hindered by their gyration around magnetic field lines, giving rise to classical collision-driven transport, proportional to  $1/{{B}^{2}}$., however, the fluid plasma description should ignore a (potentially large) contribution to the cross-field mobility, resulting from energy-position correlation of magnetized particles, along their gyro-orbits.  The dynamics of plasmas interacting with external and self-generated magnetic fields are studied in the academic discipline of magnetohydrodynamics.

  That being said, The physics equation describing Magnetohydrodynamic drive is Fmag = I (L × B) where L is the vector in the direction of the current 'I' and its length is the distance the current travels, B is the magnetic field, and × denotes the cross product.  MHD is attractive because it has no moving parts, which means that a good design might be silent, reliable, and efficient. Additionally, the MHD design eliminates many of the wear and friction pieces of the drivetrain with a directly driven propeller by an engine. By using surface dielectric barrier discharge, the microdischarges are generated on the surface of the dielectric, which results in a more homogeneous plasma than is achieved by other methods. With the advent of flexible conductors, (conducting yarn) it now becomes feasible to construct MHD air movers within the surface of an ultra-light wing, thereby allowing powered flight of a 'suit-like' environment.

    Air is an excellent insulator until it breaks down into plasma at electric field strengths above 30 kilovolts per centimeter. Once it becomes a plasma, like all gas plasma, for most purposes, the conductivity may be treated as infinite.  Systems are available that catalytically ionize air and emit an environmentally benign plasma stream.   A high-voltage low-current arc discharge in the transverse air flow of atmospheric pressure can be a source of strong non-isothermal plasma with a high level of ionization  The superconducting magnets catch the plasma as it expands. The plasma is caught by the electromagnetic fields. These fields, created by the magnetic coils, propel the plasma, so that the nozzle of the magnetic field generates a thrust and plasma is propelled away from the generator. This force will give an opposite but equal reaction propelling the wing surface. By orienting the nozzle effect above the wing, the air pressure there will drop and the pressure below the wing will create additional lift for the apparatus.

   High-energy electron beams represent the most energy-efficient way of creating ionization in cold gas. High-energy beam electrons collisionally ionize atoms and

molecules with very high probability, and secondary electrons would cause additional ionization. This creates a cascade of electrons is as the beam slows down in the gas.  The net effect is approximately one ionized molecule or atom for every Yi = 35 eV lost by the beam. This ionization cost is something like 2-3 times greater than the ionization energy of air molecules.  For high electron energies, ionization cross sections increase when the incident electron energy decreases, beams injected from the sidewall generate higher ionization inside the channel than near the wall. This means that the problem of short-circuiting through the hot, highly conductive, boundary layer, limiting performance of conventional MHD devices, is minimized in devices with electron beam ionization.  As it happens, plasmas with externally sustained ionization are inherently more stable than those of self-sustained non equilibrium discharges. This is because ionization generated by electron beams is essentially decoupled from both temperature and electric field.  If there be a local positive fluctuation in temperature, the kinds that leads to arcing instability in self-sustained discharges, it simply results in reduced ionization by electron beams and reduced local heating, stabilizing the plasma. If we use a Hall generator configuration, the plasma in both accelerator and power generator channels is consists of electrons, positive and negative ions.   plasma velocity  differs from the gas velocity  due to the ion slip effect.  Because of the quasi-neutrality, there is a single electron-ion, of plasma velocity, in the reference frame. Hall parameters in the boundary layer would be quite high (up to 30-50) impeding electron mobility across magnetic field and thereby substantially increasing the voltage required for breakdown and sustaining arcs  thermal ionization is negligible, and electrical conductivity is controlled by e-beams, as in the core flow.  If arcing should occur, for whatever reason, it would have less of an effect on the performance of Hall generators, where there already is a large longitudinal current, than on the performance of the Faraday channels currently used in MHD devices.   Use of a leading edge plasma, at high velocity, will increase the Hall effect, and thereby make the wing more efficient,  In addition, a leading edge plasma will reduce the drag on the unit, leading to a lower loading velocity for the wing.  This translates into rapid deployment and quick altitude attainment.  Inasmuch as the needed power is only that required to overcome the sink rate of the unit, the wing surface can be impregnated with a solar conversion fiber, which will provide some additional functionality to the wing itself.

    Synthesis of nanocrystalline CIGSSe and CZTSSe solar absorbers via highly scalable solution-based processes produces versatile nanoparticle inks that can be uniformly coated on almost any surface—including flexible substrates.

  A new nanotube fiber, with properties that don’t exist in any other material, that has a conducting fiber looking like black cotton thread but behaving like both metal wires and strong carbon fibers  has been invented.  With the use of this fiber, coated for photovoltaic production, and MHD technology, it should be possible to create a compact foldable wing system that allows flight for an individual over reasonably long distances without reliance on chemical fuel. The lowest weight lithium ion batteries, have a mass of 330 mg. A battery bank, rechargeable, with battery capacity of 300 Watt-hours, weighs only 5 pounds.  With photovoltaic assist, this unit could remain in the air for as long as needed.  The efficiency of these engines will be dependant on the exhaust velocity, since F=MA, that means the greater the velocity of the air,  the greater the acceleration at the same mass.  Air at high velocities produces more thrust than slower speeds for the same quantity of air. Exhaust velocities should exceed 100 m/sec for the tiny jets envisioned.