Antigravity, Hutchison Effect/Lifters

[alxian]

lifters are a reproducable effect that science cannot specifically explain (though its highly likely that its just ionic wind (meaning it works great in atmosphere with air to push against but still works in vacuum which has been tested by spitting out ions (instead of a more substantial), if a lifter like design can work in the vacuum with the same performance to push small satelites/shuttles/destroyers cruisers at impulse speeds (multiple gees of relative thrust) around then we'll have to check for magnetific field annomalies created by the lifter (it could be pushing against the earths magnetic field or gravity field even..?) that isn't apparent from ground based models because of the high air bias supplimented by the ion wind effect boosting the vectored thrust of simple ion propulsion.

 

but what about the hutchison effect?

 

is it possible for amateur garage tinkerers to build antigravitic aparatus in the privacy and comfort of our homes?

 

the canadian and US governments (prolly just the yanks, with a much higher interest in supressing new potentially subversive technologies) seem to have a keen interst in the technology but obviously must remain hush hush about anything they find should discoveries and breakthroughs destabilize established industries like ground transportation and aerospace.

 

just for perspective those inhaling highly ionized air could lead to cancer, and the effects of prolonged exposure to powerful magnetic fields of the sort used in the hutchison experiments have yet to be determined but probably aren't beneficial.

any supports or cynics in the crowd?

[CraigD]

lifters are a reproducable effect that science cannot specifically explain (though its highly likely that its just ionic wind…

You seem to have just done a reasonably good job of explaining the phenomena.

 

The claim that lifters are evidence of a propulsive effect other than ion wind appears to be an easy one to test: just place a lifter inside a vacuum chamber, and see if it still lifts. Several enthusiasts have conducted this experiment (here’s a nice picture of the apparatus for such an experiment), noting that, as the amount of air in the vacuum chamber is reduced, so is the thrust. The usual experimental design is to measure the amount of power required to make the lifter support its own weight at while measuring the pressure difference between the vacuum chamber and the normal atmosphere outside it, although some clever arrangements use a spinning “motor” to detect smaller lifts.

 

These experiments seem to demonstrate that lifters produce no thrust in the absence of air

 

Supporters claim that the experiments show that lifters produce almost no thrust in the absence of air, but that a tiny amount of thrust is unaccounted for.

 

There’s an experiment that shows that a lifter enclosed in a plastic bag still lifts. This is certainly surprising – how can wind inside a bad produce thrust? – until one considers how much heat lifters generate. I believe this effect is due to the lifter and bag acting as a hot-air balloon.

 

Some lifter enthusiasts have abandoned hope that lifters can be used to propel spacecraft, and suggested that they might be used for helicopter-like aircraft. I suspect that the disadvantages the low thrust/power ratios (the best I’ve read is about .5 grams/watt, so a lifter that could lift a 100 kg, about what a person masses, would require 200 kw, or about 270 HP) and the need for very high voltage power sources will forever outweigh the advantage of no moving parts.

 

Even if lifters can never be used to produce a useful aircraft, I’d be very impressed if a lifter enthusiast could manage to build a self-contained lifter capable of flight. They have a long way to go - to date, lifters capable of flight must be attached to large electric power supplies by thin wires, and the most massive lifters ever built mass less than 1 kg.

… is it possible for amateur garage tinkerers to build antigravitic aparatus in the privacy and comfort of our homes?

Possible? Yes. Likely? No.

 

Without a practical theory suggesting a way to manipulate gravity, tinkerers are working completely in the dark, much like a monkey with a typewriter attempting to produce the collected works of Shakespeare.

[alxian]

i was actually thinking if lifters are like early propellers could there be a jet or ram jet version down the line?

 

since lifters in essence are ion drives made inside out then classical ion propulsion would be something like the jet engine version, or at least turbo prop.

 

i hadn't considered having never built one that lifters generate heat.

 

what if you take a vehicle like the m400 skycar and use UV lasers to ionize the air in front of the engine nacelle cowling, inside the nacelle you cram in radio emmitters to reproduce hutchison electro-radio fields that pull that ionized air through the engine more efficiently and with higher pressure yeilding more thrust? creating an eletric jet engine without plasma (or with plasma if necessary)

 

if the radio equipement is roughly the size of a maglite and the laser (like the drive train in some cars, between and bellow the seats) centralized within the craft and distributed via fiber optics the overall weight of the skycar could be drastically reduced (except for the weight of batteries and the laser.. balancing it out compared to four conventional engines).

 

it would be like combining several technologies into one propulsion system.

 

ion drive to make the air managable to eletro-radio field manipulation (hutchison effect)

 

lasers like the hsv tetanizing beam to ionize the air.

 

heating the already ionized air, for almost conventional jet engine performance, possibly turning it into a plasma potential for an afterburner like effect if chemicals are added to the mix.

 

depending on the power and organization of the lasers the propulsion system could function like the lighting antigravity craft in the matrix although with far less power. or lightcraft that carry their laser onboard instead of depending on a huge ground based installation.

 

200 Kw might sound like alot if their are no apparent gains, if the lifter and hutchison effects can be unified and help skycar take flight without fossil fuels the race would be one to find a cheap alternative method to power those engines, and no longer to stymie fuels cells and other low weight high capacity battery technologies.

[UncleAl]

lifters are a reproducable effect that science cannot specifically explain

It is an ion wind. It does NOT work in vacuum. In fact, it does NOT work in a sealed inflated plastic bag. The lifter lifts inside the bag and then, by conservation of momentum, the bag does NOT lift. You can inflate the bag with a mixture of helium and air to get its net weight - bag plus lifter - to be arbitrarily small. No net lift.

 

but what about the hutchison effect?

"The effects produced include levitation of heavy objects, fusion of dissimilar materials such as metal and wood, the anomalous heating of metals without burning adjacent material, spontaneous fracturing of metals (which separate by sliding in a sideways fashion), and both temporary and permanent changes in the crystalline structure and physical properties of metals."

 

It's crap.

 

Uncle Al says, "Mystics are baffled by the obvious yet possess a complete understanding of the nonexistent."

[CraigD]

… In fact, it does NOT work in a sealed inflated plastic bag. …

Unless the results reported here are an outright lie, a lifter in a sealed plastic bag does produce enough lift to measure on an ordinary balance scale.

 

In their zeal to imply that this effect is very mysterious, Naudin (and friends?) appear to be overlooking an obvious explanation: Lifters heat air; hot air in a loose, sealed bag expands the bag; expanded sealed bags generate lift.

 

Any electric heater placed inside a loose, sealed bag will generate balloon-type lift. The effect is real, but the explanation anticlimactic.

[UncleAl]

Let Uncle Al try again,

 

IT IS ALL CRAP AND BUNKO

 

Does that allow for any ambiguity?

[CraigD]

Let Uncle Al try again,

 

IT IS ALL CRAP AND BUNKO

 

Does that allow for any ambiguity?

Ambiguity, not. Disagreement, yes.

 

Despite having been embraced by the antigravity fringe (which has plenty of free CRAP AND BUNKO to pass around), lifters are not ALL CRAP AND BUNKO. They’re interesting ion motors inexpensively accessible to any hobbyist with the sense not to hurt themselves with high-voltage power supplies (and, I fear, some who lack the sense).

 

While it’s doubtful they’ll ever be developed into any sort of useful device – there’s really not much application for corded VTOL aircraft that consume 10 times the power of existing designs – as long as people don’t get carried away and jump to the conclusion that these things are altering the fabric of local space-time, they seem like good, harmless (except for the shock hazard) fun.

 

Surely, UncleAl, you can see the fun in something that:

1) is made of tinfoil, wire, and balsa wood;

2) glows;

3) flies;

and

4) occasionally shoots little lightning bolts, frying #1 above. :hihi: