Sun-driven Aircraft of Tomorrow and Beamed-Energy Propulsion
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In 2003 we had a great centennial celebration of powered aircraft flight. A century of progress made a breathtaking path from fragile, toy-looking Kitty Hawk to something like B-2 Spirit, a quintessence of modern technology, which even looks like an alien warship from Star Wars. Could Orville and Wilbur Wright even imagine how far their enterprise of bicycle spokes and glued spruce would evolve over a hundred years?
Hundred years old road of our aeronautic progress one day will take a major turn. There is an inevitable change ahead of us and it will come because of the end of fossil fuels. Sooner or later, every internal-combustion engine on this planet from little lawn trimmer to huge transoceanic liner, wherever it is, will make its last pop and stop for good. What will replace natural hydrocarbons, and all buzz and smoke which they bring? Some areas will be inevitably taken over by a nuclear power, but for aircraft most likely this will be light. And light will keep our flyers in the air farther and longer than we can even imagine.
The aircraft of the future will be powered by light and it will be fumeless and noiseless. It will be driven by solar energy during the day and by beamed light energy during night. It will be serving to the needs of local individual transportation (substituting modern cars): even the range of daily transportation will be expanded from exhausting today 50 miles of driving to several hundred miles of pleasant flight. (Similar change happened with advent of Ford T and dwindling of horse-powered transportation). Scaled-up planes will work as long-distance passenger carriers, jumbo jets will be history. Never again the price of fuel will dictate the cost of long distance travel.
So what will be these aircraft like?
The bodies of new flyers will be made of lightweight composites. Upper wing surfaces will be plated with solar cells. During the day the cells will convert sun light into electricity, which will run aircraft motors. Some part of the energy will be collected by batteries, so in case of light outage (clouds or night time) the flyer could keep going. This may sound as a too much faith on bright sunlight and batteries: how about clouds and how about carrying heavy on-board batteries for night flights? Both issues can be solved entirely if beamed energy propulsion will become a part of the picture. This would require building of a network of power stations, but they would justify the construction costs hundredfold.
Imagine a network of airborne power stations, which will charge the passing aircraft with beamed energy of light. The stations can be lifted on aerostats fixed at 3 to 5 thousand feet altitudes and equipped with directed light sources (spotlights or lasers, this will depend on the range and type of photovoltaic elements on planes). Each airborne station could cover an area of at least 120 square miles. Alternatively, the beaming sources can be placed on towers: this will reduce the range of coverage and require additional photovoltaic cells on lower surfaces of the flyers. For the same time, ground-based stations will be much easier in operation and maintenance, not to mention building costs. The stations will be beaming light at passing aircraft and literally re-charging it with electricity.
Battery re-charging from power-beaming stations will be somewhat similar to modern in-flight fueling procedures, although safety, simplicity and affordability will be incomparably higher. If in-flight charging seems too logistically difficult, perhaps, as a transitional measure, the first flyers could be charged in hovering mode. In this case charging flyer battery with electricity will be similar to filling car tank with gasoline, although there will be no mechanical contact, light will be beamed to the hovering flyer with a powerful spotlight. When the flyer tracking technology will mature, in-flight charging will come in place. The on-board batteries will be used for passing dark zones. The stations (except those on rainy day duty) will be shut after sunrise.
Hopefully, this future is lying on the path of our progress. Life of internal-combustion engines finally will come to an end and light-powered, individual-owned aircraft will take place of modern cars. These aircraft will be capable of hovering, vertical take-off and landing (like modern day V-22 Osprey), and they will be delivering us on daily basis to our destinations without noise and smoke. How realistic is this picture? Well, there are flying full-scale prototypes, so how much realistic this needs to be? To read about emerging solar planes, please, read the story of Ron Laurenzo in May 09 issue of Aerospace America. To learn more about power-beamed transportation, please, visit the web site of American Institute of Beamed Energy Propulsion.
Article Source: Articlelogy.com
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