B-2A and electrogravity. Your opinions on this AI article??
Erik T. Viking
Only last week did I receive my January 2000 copy of AIR International,
so maybe this item has been discussed here weeks ago, but I cannot find
anything in the Deja archives.
In said issue of AI there is an article about aircraft engines by Bill
Gunston. Apart from some general information about engines he
elaborates on the possibility of the B-2A Spirit using electrogravity
as a means of propulsion. Reading this, I fear that he has crossed the
border between scientific possibilities and fiction without clearly
saying so. Although it cannot be denied that this phenomenon exists,
and that experiments like the ones Brown conducted are well-documented
and reproducable, I think there are major practicle restraints that are
not addressed.
First of all it says that the leading edge of the aircraft is charged
to "millions of volts" (in the same paragraph 'voltage' and 'charge'
are used indiscriminately, but I'll ignore this for now) during take-
off and that the resulting EG-effect then would explain the lack of
engine noise expected. As a developer of high-voltage switchgear, I
know there is now way the (estimated) 9 ft. between the leading edge
and the ground will hold that kind of voltage.
Even if the B-2A would be in mid-flight and the leading edge would
ionise the air in front, and the jet exhaust would be negatively
charged as depicted in the article (which by itself would be a
tremendous achievement) and there are no discharges to earthed objects,
there is still reason for concern:
- The pos. and neg. air particles would recombine in a matter of
microseconds, leaving behind a highly energetic phosphoric trail not
unlike the famous Aurora lights.
- This configuration basically consists of two capacitors back-to-back
at an angle of roughly 75 degrees. This would generate forces which
would merely expand/compress the aircraft, with only little effect in
the pretended flight direction.
- EG-effect with an ideally shaped capacitor with optimized, firmly
attached, dielectric filling is measured at roughly 1% of the
capacitor's mass (at 300,000 volts). So the estimated 100 MW available
for creating EG would create approx. 3400 lb of thrust (gross weight
336,500 lb as indicated by Northrop-Grumman), of which 26% (884 lb)
would be in the forward direction.
- The pointed leading edge would generate massive amounts of corona
discharges, even at modest voltages. Anybody with an HF radio can
detect this 100 miles away. Not to mention the ozon trace which can be
detected by even the modest of weather satellites.
To finish, the article says that the B-2A's segmented leading edge has
been specifically designed to allow this kind of HV-charging, but I can
see little difference with Northrop all-wing designs going back 'till
1947.
So, it's my opinion that the described situation would result in a
flash-over generating, light-emitting, broad-band jamming aircraft that
leaves behind a high-energy trail and various ionisation by-products.
All a far cry from being a stealthy design.
So, did I miss the part where mr. Gunston said "I'm going to ridicule
this idea", am I just to old-fashioned to accept these ideas which are
very often related to UFO topics, or am I just biased because I known a
little about high-voltage stuff, and virtually nothing about aircraft
propulsion? How about a simple explanation which includes advanced
active noise cancellation techniques?
Erik
--
"Sorry, no quote!"
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Ralph Savelsberg
very surprised by this article. I planned to look up the Aviation week
article he referred to, but haven't gotten to it yet. Perhaps somebody
else remembers reading it some years ago.
There do indeed seem to be some problems with a system as he describes it,
but the wing leading edge of the B-2 is indeed very different from that on
the earlier flying wings. The question is whether this is for stealth
purposes or indeed for some fancy propulsion system. I'm puzzled.
Ralph
Mike Thompson
Ross "Roscoe" Dillon
there is nothing extraordinary about the propulsion system. Straight,
normal, non-augmented turbofans.
Roscoe
USAF Flight Tester
(B-1, B-2, T-38, T-37, C-5, QF-106, F-16, F-5...)
------
If replying by email, please remove _no_spam_ from address
Erik T. Viking
sea...@flash.net wrote:
> There is even more at this URL:
> http://www.AboveTopSecret.com/squadron.html
Interesting. My initial search on electrogravity dit not reveal this
site. Looking up the name of this Ph.D. in several search engines
several sites about supernatural, apocalyptic and spiritual issues pop
up. Hmmm, and he's trying to sell his books too. But I found some more
promissing sites (see below).
The only credible part on this home page is the fact that the B-2 may
very well use ionized air (or 'plasma') to reduce turbulence. I've read
several Russian and Western articles which confirm this effect. The
fact that ionized gas mixes more rapidly with uncharged surrounding gas
resulting in enhanced cooling is a fact that is being utilized for AC
current interruption in gas-insulated high-voltage switchgear for
decades, so I'll believe that too. Me thinks these are two applications
emerging from research into the Biefield-Brown effect that appear
usefull. The rest seems a bit far-fetched.
I should state here that I find this interesting stuff. Maybe I'll try
to do some of those experiments myself. Most 'scientific' publications
on the WWW do nothing more than explain the polarisation effect in
dielectric materials (known for over 100 years) and try to sell that as
electrogravity. Or they make far-fetched assumptions that single
negative charges can be generated instantly and that the field they
then start to emit contains an infinite amount of energy. This,
naturally leads to the conclusion that mass is materialised and
destroyed at periodic intervals, making space a collaction of 'standing
mass waves, on the distortion of which electrogravitic activated
particles move.' (not quoted literally, I'd hate to be sued for
copyright infringement on this :-)
look at page 2, paragraph 2 of
http://www.electrogravity.com/GRAVBOOK/Egchap01.pdf if you dare.
Everybody who can integrate 1/R2 from a given range till infinity
understands that this is a bogus presumption. Generation of charged
particles, of course, results in two oppositely charged particles at an
infinitely small distance. According to the simple superposition
principle the netto field will be zero. And that electric fields
propagate merely at lightspeed is dictated by rhe relativity theory by
this well-known person.
Or am I wrong. There are people here who study physics at well-
respected universities who might shed some light on this (eyh, Ralph :-)
And to conclude, Bill Gunston is one of my favorite authors, probably
only second to William Green. Actually I was looking forward to his
article about engines, that's probably why I was so surprised. Normally
I don't post about every article I read.
<SNIP original post>
Erik
--
"Sorry, no quote"
Mike Thompson
the website. I found many things that had me saying "what a minute that
is crap". Nut the article is a hoot to read and I take it with a grain
of salt.
MikeT
Damien Burke
<rossdillo...@home.com> wrote:
>Having worked on the B-2 during early flight testing, Ii guarantee you
>there is nothing extraordinary about the propulsion system. Straight,
>normal, non-augmented turbofans.
<Venik/Mladen/Eni mode ON>
Ah, but you *would* say that, wouldn't you!
<Venik/Mladen/Eni mode OFF>
--
Damien Burke (add 'k' to end of address if replying)
British military aircraft site: http://www.totavia.com/jetman/
Ross "Roscoe" Dillon
<dam...@jetman.dircon.co.u> wrote:
>On Tue, 04 Jan 2000 03:32:23 GMT, "Ross \"Roscoe\" Dillon"
><rossdillo...@home.com> wrote:
>
>>Having worked on the B-2 during early flight testing, Ii guarantee you
>>there is nothing extraordinary about the propulsion system. Straight,
>>normal, non-augmented turbofans.
>
><Venik/Mladen/Eni mode ON>
>Ah, but you *would* say that, wouldn't you!
><Venik/Mladen/Eni mode OFF>
LOL :)
Roscoe
Ralph Savelsberg
electrogravity. It certainly is fascinating. It lead to a rather
interesting discussion over lunch yesterday. Practiacally nobody here in
the group had ever heard of it before. I'm doing my graduation project in
fluid dynamics, so perhaps that is not very surprising. The only one who
knew at least something about it was one of the technicians , a person who
is always roaming teh internet to find fascinating bits of physics. Cold
fusion is one of his favorite subjects.
He told me that J.L. Naudin did some interesting experiments with
electrogravity, but my quick search on the net turned up rather little. It
did turn up the following:
A site featuring a large number of links about electrogravity is:
http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/freenrg/antigrav.html
There also is a page about one of the pioneers of the field:
http://soteria.com/brown/
I really am rather busy, so I didn't take the time to look further into it
right now. I've got a deadline coming up.
By the way, I doubt the book on
www.electrogravity.com
is of very much use. I kind off distrust people who give numbers to 10
decimal places.
Ralph
Alex Stoll
enlighten me?
--
Alex Stoll
N2...@hotmail.com
http://AlexStoll.cjb.net
http://www.robotgroup.org/lubbock/futureframe.htm
AIM - N22YF
Erik T. Viking
sea...@flash.net wrote:
> Erik, please do not assume that I buy hook, line, and sinker what is
at
> the website. I found many things that had me saying "what a minute
that
> is crap". Nut the article is a hoot to read and I take it with a
grain
> of salt.
>
> MikeT
Note the quotation marks around 'scientific' :-) I'll take it with a
busload of NaCl.
Erik
--
"Sorry, no quote!"
Erik T. Viking
Sometimes even 14. That's probably the limit of the calculator used.
And this Naudin has his own JLN-labs, with accompanying home-page where
he publishes his results. There are pictures of his 'test objects' made
from plywood alufoil end styrofoam. Look like theatre props to me :-)
(http://members.xoom.com/jlnlabs/)
With 25-50 kV up their ass, almost all light object like this tend to
move somewhere. This can hardly be compared with something like the B-
2, where large air enclosures (cockpit, bomb-bay...) tend to severely
limit the allowable field strength.
Enough said. This tread is on the brink of going off-topic. And I'll
leave that to other individuals on this NG.
Erik
P.S. Good luck with your graduation project.
Erik T. Viking
"Ross \"Roscoe\" Dillon" <rossdillo...@home.com> wrote:
> Having worked on the B-2 during early flight testing, Ii guarantee you
> there is nothing extraordinary about the propulsion system. Straight,
> normal, non-augmented turbofans.
>
> USAF Flight Tester
> (B-1, B-2, T-38, T-37, C-5, QF-106, F-16, F-5...)
> ------
> If replying by email, please remove _no_spam_ from address
>
Thanks for backing me up on this. Same payment as usual?? :-))
But seriously: charging the leading edge to reduce vortices and the
exhaust for cooling could make sence.(See previous post in tread) Can
you comment on that? (I'm willing to pay double here. ;-))
Erik
orig...@my-deja.com
the B-2) has been flying around since AW&ST speculated about it in an
article in 1994. Also in ยด91 (I'm not sure if that's right) Janes
Defence Weekly carried an article about SAIC's work into the subject
matter, electro-gravitics.
I guess a lot of people just don't look for stuff outside their
paradigm.
Of course, these discussions (at least the ones I've written in) took
place in uk.rec.ufo and sci.physics.
Fringe science seems (yet again) to becoming science.
Thoughts?
-Christian.
"Science progresses, funeral by funeral." - Max Planck.
In article <38730E2C...@vortex.phys.tue.nl>,
Ralph Savelsberg <ra...@vortex.phys.tue.nl> wrote:
> Erik, to be honest Gunston's article was the first time I heard of
> electrogravity. It certainly is fascinating. It lead to a rather
> interesting discussion over lunch yesterday. Practiacally nobody here
>in the group had ever heard of it before.
<Snipped old stuff>
--
"Science progresses, funeral by funeral." - Max Planck.
Join my Seti@home team @
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/cgi?cmd=team_lookup&name=
lone+gunmen+of+copenhagen
dircon.co.uk
Ralph Savelsberg <ra...@vortex.phys.tue.nl> wrote in message
news:38730E2C...@vortex.phys.tue.nl...
> Erik, to be honest Gunston's article was the first time I heard of
> electrogravity. It certainly is fascinating. It lead to a rather
> interesting discussion over lunch yesterday. Practiacally nobody here in
> the group had ever heard of it before
I think Bill Gunston is to be applauded for tackling this very tricky
subject. some years ago I was sent a document. It clearly states that back
in the 50s, most aerospace heavyweights were actively
involved in this area of research. So what happened to it - and does anyone
know anything about
the group mentioned below ?
" ELECTROGRAVITICS SYSTEMS
An examination of electrostatic motion,
dynamic counterbary and barycentric control.
Prepared by:
Gravity Research Group
Aviation Studies (International) Limited
Special Weapons Study Unit
29-31 Cheval Place, Knightsbridge
London, S.W.7. England
Report GRG-013/56 February 1956.
AF Wright Aeronautical Laboratories
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
Technical Library
Dayton, Ohio 45433
TL 565 A9
Bar Code: 3 1401 00034 5879 "
Chris Douglas
@dircon.co.uk wrote:
> Ralph Savelsberg <ra...@vortex.phys.tue.nl> wrote in message
> news:38730E2C...@vortex.phys.tue.nl...
> > Erik, to be honest Gunston's article was the first time I heard of
> > electrogravity. It certainly is fascinating. It lead to a rather
> > interesting discussion over lunch yesterday. Practiacally nobody here in
> > the group had ever heard of it before
>
> I think Bill Gunston is to be applauded for tackling this very tricky
> subject. some years ago I was sent a document. It clearly states that back
> in the 50s, most aerospace heavyweights were actively
> involved in this area of research. So what happened to it - and does anyone
> know anything about
> the group mentioned below ?
According to the gist of modern physics, gravity should be unifiable with the
electro-weak (electrical, magnetic, and weak force, which are currently
unified), along with strong force (if anybody doesn't know what "weak" and
"strong" force are, they're subatomic forces that deal with the cohesion of
quanta). But while many a physicist would love to be the one to come up with
the definitive theory of electrogravity, nobody has claimed the prize (and even
when they do, there's no guarantee that it will enable to use electricity or
magnetism to negate gravity).
As for the B-2, it's a big-ass wing. Nothing but aerodynamic lift, anywhere.
It could probably fly with half the thrust it's equipped with.
--Chris Douglas