How Jetoptera's Bladeless Propulsion System Works 

search bladeless fans and their flows on youtube. Great video.

@@generalrendar7290 the fans are just inside rite? so there are blades inside it..

I think it's more a long the lines of the venturi effect

Think of a bunch of modified Dyson fans folks.

This is all optics, folks- 0:17 -that is certainly a micro-turbine engine, and I suspect it drives a fan connected at either the front or the back, the output of which ducts to those "bladeless" propulsors, lol.

It's marketing, as always. I'm excited about both, though - electrostatic engines could be used to power a vehicle IN FLIGHT, as a low-powered glider. For taking off, a combustion engine could be used. The fuel that would be needed for the jet engine can then be used to drive a generator with just a single turbine instead of two or even four. If turbulence occurs, the jet engines for take-off can be reactivated to allow for better maneuvering. All in all, such a design COULD save a lot of fuel at the cost of more expensive production. In my wild theory, at least.

Oh good. Someone else here realized this thing was a big old scam, just like the Dyson "bladeless" fans with their bases full of (guess what) blades.

I think this scam is even worse because the large internal surfaces in the area of ​​air intake, compression and routing create quite a bit of frictional resistance, even if it isn't visible from the outside. Not only is this not beneficial, it is probably even more inefficient than a visible propeller.

@@asagk And it has to be a scam. Despite the fact that this will never amount to anything, it still took a lot of technical competence to make their demonstration work. The people who made this thing know everything you just said. They know for a fact that it will never meet the claims they made. They're willfully misrepresenting their "technology" to investors. Its fraud, like Theranos only it hasn't been busted yet.

Armchair engineers 🤣

Those are called PAV personal air vehicles I am going to be making only pav in near future.

@Gen Old maybe, but outdated? Not yet.

I like to think of it as allowing you to build a jet engine in any geometry you want. Circle, rectangle, something much weirder... A jet engine obviously requires a circle shape, this technology can do anything. Plus the fact that it's so close in tech to a turbo charger, I'd imagine hyper car makers will be able to make a good flying car soon, like Rimac / Koenisigg. Hyper cars are typically wind tunneled up to 250mph-300mph, which is already enough for airplane certs / small jet qualification.

If then

You’ve done your research!

lilium is way ahead of everyone

@@DeathZeroTolerance here's what I like about Lilium: good redundancy with 36 EDFs. Good aerodynamics with the nacelles. Small vehicle foot print for VTOL operations. Solid testing track record. What I don't like about Lilium: The high power consumption in the VTOL mode. It's reliance on electric propulsion without an option for the use of conventional fuel. The extra complexity with managing 36 separate engines. Low range of 1 hour at cruise. The use of fan blades makes them more susceptible to debris like birds or FOD at landing pads. That and the fact that it's a modest improvement over previous technology.

@@generalrendar7290 some valid points, but jetoptera isn't even close to manned flights. lilium has already done hundreds of manned flights with 5 person capacity, and are gearing up for 7 person production and are past the planning stages for beginning work on infrastructure for 'airports'. concepts are neat, but if you can't execute the idea at scale, it's of little real value

@@DeathZeroTolerance that’s fine, but airplanes came out in 1903. Helicopters came into use in the 1950s. They have a massive head start, but there’s a reason why the Wright Bros company is not at the forefront of aviation. Innovation and profitability. Jetoptera is moving in a ground breaking direction. EDFs are a cool toy but they are not commercially competitive with piston and jet engines in aviation at this time. 30 minutes of flying is near useless in GA (and that’s being generous to Lilium). The legal requirement to conduct a flight under part 91 of the FARs is to fly to your destination and _past_ it for another 30 minutes. I’m not saying that electric aviation won’t eventually carve out a market for itself, but for now, it isn’t profitable or practical on large scale. Jetoptera can be powered by conventional _and_ electric propulsion. Lilium can only do electric and in order to scale it up increases complexity at an unacceptable rate. Can you imagine how much longer it would take to preflight an aircraft with 36 or more engines instead of 1? How many spares you would have to stock in order to keep the aircraft operating? Would Lilium be considered airworthy if one of the engines failed? I imagine that it would be a maintenance nightmare to own. Granted I like this one in comparison to other propeller or fan driven designs but I believe Jetoptera will be commercially viable _if_ they can deliver on their claims of power and speed.

I came to the comments to say the same thing. It's frustrating

U got it

Very well said Sr.

once it's airborne, the frame of reference is within the surrounding air. If it flies with a tailwind, it would just have greater ground speed.

@@carlosandleon That is true of normal propulsion systems but this relies on air flow forced through a specific pathway to generate force by laminar flow. Back pressure could disrupt the laminar flow if the tailwinds are stronger than the outflow.

@@arnoldbailey7550 you can say the same thing with propellers. Imagine taking off with a tailwind on a cessna. With a strong enough tailwind, thrust is negated there too.

@@carlosandleon yes. However, this flow system is not the same. I just want to know if it would kill the engine or cause a stall. Typical aircraft can recover fairly well; would this system. Regardless, water and ice would still be an interesting test and I imagine a bird or two would not bode well.

The problem is that there is more hype in battery innovations than scientific fact. I can promise to fly you too the moon everyday until the day I die. But how long will it take an income of less than 1000 a month to save up the billions necessary to pay for the ship and other expenses necessary for the trip? That's pretty much what scientific research and development is about. It's not that the innovations are possible, it's that if they don't exaggerate the status, they won't get more money to continue the research and development. Then, every so often, someone figures out how to make the promise, a reality.

You may find when you investigate the patent, that a patent troll doing nothing but filing patents of ideas, has already done so. But don't assume that's the case. Investigate.

its the weight to energy ratio that's the problem

There is a small-scale model. But I think the problem of low efficiency will only show up when it's full scale. Nowadays you can build almost anything in RC scale, as there are small and powerful electric motors. But it's not easily scalable.

1:1?

Nonsense, the efficiency should be measured in m3/s per Watt, not "m/s per fan power levels". That video proves nothing.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VLD8E2UraXw.html

@@priosminimus6969 yeah i found that one

it's very similar to a turbofan/turbojet. Bladeless is a misnomer, there are definitely blades/turbines, they're just not exposed like in a traditional aircraft. Just like how dyson's 'bladeless' system is not actually bladeless...the fan is just tucked inside and then the fluid flow is directed in the channels. hyped technology that'll never really take off

NDB's and hydrogen should arrive around the same time. Then, the race is on.

People have enough road rage on the ground, couldn't imagine millions in the air😮

No! It has to be specifically designed for that, and a gas powered air ship is not capable of achieving the speed and height necessary for escape velocity.

I have zero problems with petroleum or coal.

Oh contraire - I suggest you go and research some fluid mechanics, Bernoulli's Principle, Coanda effect and fluidic propulsion systems. You might then realise that this propulsion idea is actually pretty sound. At present, the power required is still out of the range of current battery storage capacity, for full manned EV use, though within practical application for R/C models. How this will scale-up will be interesting. Currently, a single small gas-turbine powers the centrifugal compressor that supplies the HP to the multi-vectored FP thrusters, but yes, overall, a far more efficient system than straight gas turbine vectored thrust, tilt wing/rotor, or conventional rotor and with considerably less dB's emitted than any other aircraft other than a glider, which is always a plus.

Do a little research on the XFV-12A. The program was shut down before this plane made a single flight, but it did actually hover during it's testing phase. For many reasons, the XFV-12A would have never made a good military fighter aircraft, but it did prove the fluidics propulsion concept can be scaled up to a full size aircraft.