The VTOL Lifter-Craft MkIII
By Jean-Louis Naudin
Cliquez ici pour la version Française
created on October 1, 2002 - JLN Labs - Last update October 4, 2002
All informations in this page are published free and are intended for private/educational purposes and not for commercial applications


( 10-04-02 ) TEST #3 : FULL STEERING OF THE VTOL LIFTER-CRAFT WITH A CONTROL PANEL

The purpose of this project is to test a new VTOL prototype which uses the Lifter technology.

An aircraft equipped with an electrokinetic system of propulsion based on the system of Townsend Brown has many very interesting characteristics, like :

- Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) capabilities,
- a reduced aerodynamic drag,
- an increase in its flight time and thus in its operating range,
- an absence of mobile control surfaces (ailerons, rudder, elevator ) and thus no reflective mobile surface to the radar waves,
- a high maneuvrability (an adaptive flight envelope ) due to an intelligent control of the laminar flow,
- a full silent flight,
- a quasi null thermal signature,
- the use of an electric power generator and thus no fuel is required,
- the electromagnetic waves scattering and stealth capabilities...

The Lifter-Craft MkIII uses 3 independent EKP thrusters placed around the cockpit ( front, rear left, rear right ).
These 3 EKP thrusters will be used for maneuvering the craft as an helicopter but without moving parts and silently...


The VTOL Lifter-Craft MkIII is 600 mm wingspan and 700 mm length.


( 10-01-02 ) TEST #1 : HOVERING TEST with the 3 EKP thrusters in parallel

When the HV Power supply is switched on, the VTOL Lifter-Craft goes upward quickly and remains very stable, maintained on the table with 3 thin nylon threads to avoid that it escapes to the ceiling...

See the videos of the Test #1 of the VTOL Lifter-Craft MkIII

To see the video, the free downloadable RealPlayer is required
You may download free the RealPlayer 8 Basic at : http://proforma.real.com/real/player/blackjack.html


Click on the picture above to see the video ( 453 Kb )


Click on the picture above to see the video ( 562 Kb )


( 10-03-02 ) TEST #2 : STEERING TEST with the EKP thrusters powered separately


The three EKP thrusters are powered seperately by 3 THT power supplies from 3 old PC monitors.
Theses THT outputs are weaker than the previous THT power supply used for the TEST #1.


PITCHING LEFT : The rear left EKP thruster is OFF


PITCHING RIGHT : The rear right EKP thruster is OFF


FORWARD TRANSLATION : The front EKP thruster is OFF

Comments : This experiment demonstrates that it is fully possible to steer the flight of a VTOL Lifter-Craft.


( 10-04-02 ) TEST #3 : FULL STEERING WITH A CONTROL PANEL

After the encouraging results of the previous steering tests of the VTOL Lifter-Craft ( see the TEST #2 above ), I was fully confident that it was now possible to improve the principle. In the previous test, I had used three independant HV power supplies for checking the working principle. Now in this test, I have decided to use only one power supply, so I have used my High Power HV tunable power supply which is able to give me up to 50 KV at 6 mA. I have built a special control panel with 3 buttons, there are the Forward button (F), the pitch Left button ( L), the pitch Right button (R), as shown in the photo below.


In front of the picture you may see the main control panel for steering the VTOL Lifter-Craft. The High Voltage level for each EKP thruster has been tuned so has to get a stable hovering when the F, R, L buttons are switched ON.


FORWARD TRANSLATION : The HV of the forward EKP thruster is reduced ( the F button is switched OFF )


PITCHING RIGHT : The HV of the rear right EKP thruster is reduced ( the R button is switched OFF )


PITCHING LEFT : The HV of the rear left EKP thruster is reduced ( the L button is switched OFF )

As you will notice in the VIDEO below, the VTOL Lifter-Craft is highly maneuvrable and its steering is easy.

See the video of the Test #3 of the Full control of VTOL Lifter-Craft

To see the video, the free downloadable RealPlayer is required
You may download free the RealPlayer 8 Basic at : http://proforma.real.com/real/player/blackjack.html


Click on the picture above to see the video ( 739 Kb )

Comments from Jean-Louis Naudin : These very encouraging and impressive tests results have confirmed to me that is now possible to build a real and fully steerable VTOL Lifter-Craft. The next step aims at building a mockup of VTOL UAV using this technology...


Email : JNaudin509@aol.com


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