Star Trek-inspired ‘ion drive’ plane with no moving parts makes historic first flight
- The plane has no propeller or turbines and is instead powered by supercharged air molecules
- The silent aircraft, built by researchers at MIT, flew only 55 metres but could herald a revolution in flight technology
The blue glowing jets of science-fiction spacecraft came a step closer to reality on Wednesday as US physicists unveiled the world’s first solid-state aeroplane with no moving parts, powered in flight by supercharged air molecules.
More than a century on from the Wright brothers’ first artificial flight, scientists hailed the “historic” test of the new “ion drive” technology, which could eventually slash greenhouse-gas emissions from aviation.
Ever since Orville and Wilbur Wright’s momentous flight in the winter of 1903, aircraft have been driven by propellers or jets that must burn fuel to create the thrust and lift needed for sustained flight.
A team of experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology managed to unlock a process known as electroaerodynamics, previously never seen as a plausible way to power an aircraft.
They were able to fly the new plane, with a wingspan of five metres (16 feet), a distance of 55 metres (181 feet) at a speed of 17km/h (10.6 miles/h).
That’s hardly supersonic, but the implications of this unprecedented mode of flight could be stratospheric.