I Wonder How Far Advanced Flight Technology Has Advanced Since Jean-Pierre Petit's Work On Mhd. Anybody Here Know?

[Atheist]

I saw a talk by Jean-Pierre some years ago where he described his work on MHD and went on to suggest how to use it for flight propulsion. As his sketches and diagrams appeared on the blackboard, there slowly appeared a circular wingless craft: he finished by saying what everybody must have by then been thinking. It's been worked on by others since then, and I wonder what, if anything, has become of this idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingless_Electromagnetic_Air_Vehicle

https://faculty.eng.ufl.edu/aprg/research/weav/

[Old_Geezer]

Circular sea faring ships proved problematic. Perhaps they realised this aircraft would be too ?

[Atheist]

OG; I know that Avro worked on a primitive disc-shaped aircraft many years ago, which was hopeless. I didn't know about circular marine craft (except perhaps the coracle).

'Flying saucers' seem not to operate in the same way as our planes; they don't have drag issues and don't need to be streamlined.

[douglas9401]

You forgot to add 'in the movies' to your 10:38 post, Atheist.

[Old_Geezer]

Popovka

https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/qi/episodes/16/4/

 

Perhaps it isn't comparable ?

[Atheist]

Doug - and in the US military movies. Of course, the US military has motivation to claim advanced tech so as to worry the rest of the world.

 

[Atheist]

OG; I didn't understand your link. Presumably a joky take on UFO stuff?

[davebro3]

wot's MHD😕

[Atheist]

Magnetohydrodynamics.

It's been used as marine propulsion for some models and one Japanese larger vessel. Not particularly effective. It's been claimed that Russia built very high speed torpedoes using plasma technology, but not been heard of lately.

Jean-Pierre Petit was persuaded that such stuff had been developed, but it seems unlikely. He also claimed that plasma tech is used in advanced aircraft, and that supersonic flight can be achieved without a supersonic boom.