Is the "Fan-Wing" concept a good idea? Also, please post "good ideas" that warra

What a multi-threaded post.

Del is here... or Del's here...whatever...

...the king is dead, long live the king!

The drawback of the fan wing would seem to be the sheer physical size of the moving parts... long shaft for the fan, big diameter fan...heavy wing assembly.

Don't start me off on my 'pasteboard pals' I used to play a fair bit of bridge to a reasonable standard.... keen observers may well have noticed my 'trick one' references in the past. I've plenty of bridge 'bon mot' ....'Never send a boy on a man's errand' as my Da' used to say.

Del

Granted, it is a multi-threaded post but it could not possibly me any more so than the "Please describe all good ideas" post. That had to be truly open-ended! Anyway, just having a little fun with grammar, the King (past), and you and Kris. No offense intended.

I am curious about the Fan-wing plane. What you said about big diameter fan, etc. makes sense. It does seem to approach the idea of aircraft wing lift from a different perspective though.

-John

Hello Johnjohn, and other interested readers.

If we are able to concentrate on the Fan-Wing Plane here please, it should be more readable, because the Topic becomes entirely unwieldy if all-inclusive.

A different Topic Thread may be started for other Subjects, I'm sure, so that is my first suggestion.

So.....The Fan-Wing Plane Discussion & Good Ideas:

I had some concerns when I read the article, when I realized the bird strike problem (which could be solved with chicken netting across the front intake).

But a night's mature (what other sort could there be?) reflection, brought me a laterally thought out side effect of a properly designed and modified Fan-Wing plane.

Having designed and modified Combine Harvesters in my younger days, (tractor-powered in case you thought I selectively bred herbivores), and having seen extensive marine farms established during the last 40+ years, there is a strategic side effect of the Fan-Wing Plane.

It appears that nobody has thought about this side effect before today, but because I am not avaricious, I wish to share this side effect with everyone, without prejudice of any kind.

As mentioned above, in my usual modest and unassuming way, the previously unknown side effect of the Fan-Wing plane could be used to help feed the multitudes who are in need of high quality protein.

Instead of the "Bird Strike" being a problem, the Fan-Wing plane, could have a specially fitted hopper, into which those birds are propelled at such a speed they do not survive the short trip, during its travels.

The hopper is attached to an automatic plucker, eviscerator, steriliser, the birds cooked by the bypass heat from the engines, then snap frozen, bagged, weighed and labelled.

If the Fan-Wing plane was designed to be refuelled in the air, it could be operated for long periods, and the frozen pre-cooked birds dropped down to waiting hungry persons below, on small biodegradable parachutes.

Perhaps even the parachute materials could be edible, in that way there is little waste, or litter left far below the cruising Fan-Wing plane.

As far as night work, and collection of owls and the feathered like, there are a few problems to iron out, although owls are edible.

Bats are a "different kettle of fish", however, because they do not operate by visible light at night.

To harvest bats at night by the Fan-Wing protein harvester unit, will require careful thought.

A sonic disruptor will be needed, not enough to annoy or startle the bats, perhaps CR4 readers with Chiroptera experience could assist here, as there may well be a particular music style which attracts those night-flyers.

I trust this will stimulate brain synapses, and achieve further serious discussion.

Remember that sometimes great things come, out of what appear to be rather odd or strange at the time.....

Thanks for that weblink, Charles,

Evidently they did not use the chicken netting modification on the intake.

The problem of bird strikes on jet engined aircraft could be overcome by means of a centrifugal separator in the intake.

Thus a bird or other object, with heavier mass than the entering air, is easily and quickly spun out of the air-stream, thus preventing engine damage, with consequential loss of life and/or hardware......

Wow. Just...wow.

Ah, the return of inflight meals.

They obviously did not use the red hardboard things that fits in the intake designed to keep the birds out.

Charles, I noticed your avatar. Are you evolving my friend?

De-volving!

Maybe he is trying to see if he can do stand-up.

A wolverine, a lemming and a skwirrel walk into a bar...

Or a cat, a skwirrel, and a jaguar walk into a John, John?

The Jaguar eats the skwirrel in one bite.

Cat: Why did you do that?

Jaguar: Appetizer.

Hey. It's the best I can do at short notice.

What a great post. Truly funny.

Back to the Fan Wing, egg beating jokes aside, materials issues are a concern.

Say wear edges on carbon fiber blades with Ti struts (or equivalent), with a foot radius- My concern is balancing.

Bird/Bat, dirt, and ice become major issues. Both dirt and ice balance or average out at first but buildup comes of randomly. A forty foot wing with a random say 1kHz vibration location and it is(to state the obvious) only supported on one end.

A stress analysis headache. Complexity requires redundancy or over spec.ing

Second is weight- the structure to support the reliability factor adds weight but how much?

Complexity usually is proportional to cost.

I like the concept but maintenance, materials, and application issues may need work.

No math just speculations

Brad

Hi Brad,

Since the fan-wing generates its own airflow over the wing surface, i.e., it doesn't need x mph ground speed to generate the low pressure over the upper surface of the wing in order to generate lift, then looks like we could extrapolate that to mean we could have a VTOL?

Leonardo would be proud!

-John

Yes and without the inherent issues of the Osprey, a high volume low pressure tangent axis ducted fan. But power, stress, and complexity are even a larger issue in a VTOL. That adds thrust control in micro second time and the feedback systems.

Blade design will be interesting. So will maintenance access.

Brad

To good.

HahahhahahHAHHAHAhahhahahhaHAHAHHAHHAHhaaahhahhahaahaha!

Balancing of the "paddle wheel" can be done with fluid damper devices based on the principle used in racing engine harmonic balancers. If dirt, ice or bird build-up occurs, the fluid damper readjusts automatically. This would eliminate a lot of the vibration that the "wing" would otherwise be subjected to. Any remaining would have to be dealt with structurally.

We might eliminate the build up of dirt, bird buildup, etc. by considering its use as a seaplane! Enemy sighted. DIVE! DIVE!

Might still have a slight problem with pelican build up though, not to mention "flying fish" buildup.

Hey, maybe we could use it to harvest sardines, or plankton, or something.

Actually the model they showed in the video clips seemed to be quite stable.

Addendum:

Lets attach it to a houseboat and charge folks to ride on an authentic paddle wheeler.

While playing with the grand kids the other day I "discovered" a motion system that might warrant discussion(?). I have a 2' x 3' dolly that I use to move heavier things around my shop. The dolly is mounted on 4 swivel casters. I stood on the dolly and by shifting my weight, i.e., hips forward suddenly, I could make the dolly propel me forward. Now, by slowly moving my hips back to the start position so as not to generate a reverse thrust, I was able to move almost smoothly across the floor (with a little practice that is).

Haven't tried it on a slope yet. Might break my neck! But if I put sprague clutches in the dolly wheels (so I don't roll down the hill), it will be interesting to see if I can actually make it up an incline).

Whatya' think about that?

OOPS! It just occurred to me that if I put sprague clutches in 4 free-wheeling casters, I'm in big trouble (which way do I free wheel?). The clutches would go nuts! If they could think they might probably say something like "that's just like management!"

Perhaps I assign a front and back to the dolly and make just the front casters free-wheeling (no spragues). Then put spragues in rear wheels only (just to eliminate rolling back down the hill).

Good luck (to me).

With the speed requirement of the reel type fan rotor, and the length of it, turning sharply is going to be a problem, because of gyroscopic forces

Because that is proportional to mass, diameter of rotor, and rotational speed, there is going to be the need for extremely light materials.

At present the best possibility of lowering the rotor mass, would be to use main material a matrix of Carbon nano-tubes, strengthened by spiderweb silk made by silkworms, which we read about recently here on CR4:

http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/1014/MIT-Labs-Moves-Ahead-In-Synthesizing-Spider-Silk

http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/4235

Just a few thoughts, in an otherwise idle moment.....

"Just a few thoughts, in an otherwise idle moment....."

With such a fertile imagination you need many, many more idle moments! Maybe you should consider employment in a "think tank". I'll be waiting.