British Start-Up Tests Flying Saucers

Sabre Runner writes to mention that a new British start-up, Aesir, has acquired the assets of a defunct drone company and is working on evolving a working model from several prototypes of "flying saucer" drones. "Aesir's first prototype, named 'Embler' [...] demonstrates the so-called 'Coanda effect,' where air speeds up as it 'sticks' to a curved surface. Aesir's drones take advantage of the Coanda effect to direct air down, away from the drone, boosting lift. Aesir doesn't appear to have any paying customers yet — and is reportedly bankrolled by a single investor."

Re:Sigh

[interval1066]

Ah. I see that I got caught up in Steorn's doublespeak. If you read the wikipedia article on the company what actually happened was that they finally showed the technology to some independent scientists who were completely unimpressed with what they were shown. In other words; Orbo does not work.

Re:Sigh

[Kell Bengal]

Yes and no. We understand a lot about how fluids work in idealised cases. We know a lot about how individual molecules of air work. We know a lot about how turbulent flow works on a probablistic scale.

What we don't know well is how to estimate unsteady fluid flows with no a priori global knowledge of fluid conditions (same problem the climate modelers have on a much smaller scale). If we knew where every molecule was, how much energy it had and what the forces acting on them were at initial conditions I think we could do a pretty decent job working out what blade profile would work best for that condition; but it's a trick question because conditions can change dramatically across the flight envelope of a helicopter.

As I understand it, aerodynamics design these days is mostly simulation anyway. Blade design is still an art as much of a science, requiring careful consideration of trade-offs involved. I do not believe we're going to see any revolutionary performance gains until a truly novel lift device is invented (ie. something that doesn't use air as a working fluid).