Ion Engines

[Erik L (OP)]

http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/3/4178708/ionic-thrusters-more-efficient-than-jet-engines-says-MIT-study

[niflheimr]

I call bullsmeg. Sure , it might get those 110 N/kW (though I doubt it , air is a lot harder to ionize than say argon ) but there's an upper limit to the thrust you can get from an ion drive before it starts arcing all over the grids.

I really doubt you can get more than a couple of thousands of newtons out of it - which is useless for anything bigger than a basket Not to mention the batteries will be heavy enough to make it impossible to lift  

Edit: going through their paper now - having the uni's publish accounts really helps

Edit2 : original paper here : http://lae.mit.edu/uploads/LAE_report_series/2012/LAE-2012-008-T.pdf

Edit3 : Just as I expected , overhyped by media. The paper is quite nice , don't get me wrong , but it does show that there's a limit to how much you can scale the thrust , and they've worked on milinewton designs , not something powerful enough to lift a jet. Still , downloaded , bookmarked and archived for later read when I've got the time to do it properly.

[Sheb]

Yeah, it's amazing how the media tend to overhype everything. They're ripping electrons out of the very molecules we breathe to turn them into somthing they can use for propulsion, isn't that cool enough? You don't need fancy blabla to make science cool.