Tail is also providing stability through its weight. By the way, does anybody know or have thought about a kite flying stable at nadir (opposite of zenith) that could be used as a stabilizing tail ? Should I start a topic on this subject ? Maybe in Autozenith kite ? Auto-zenith kite
I bought a mini single line pocket parafoil. Weight of the kite without the tail, approximately 20 grams, and 45 grams with the tail. Flight elevation angle: approximately 45 degrees.
I then replaced the original tail with a 3m/0.5m rectangle with a bar at each end, the whole thing weighing 125 grams without the 20 gram kite: photo below.
The kite was flying at an elevation angle of only 10 degrees and was very unstable, as the tail kept moving.
But stability wasnât the first thing I was looking for. I was trying to see if it was possible to get extra traction with the tail. So I installed a line for the tail, and pulled: the elevation angle then went from 10 degrees to 0 degrees, with a very strong pull during few seconds, but no stability, even less than when the tail was hanging.
For stability, several sections are maybe better if we want an overall higher area tail.
That sounds like a good idea to me. It seems to me that would reduce the kiteâs degrees of freedom, forcing it to always point up, as long as the tension on the tail line was high enough. But @Rodread has some experience with this and disagrees?
Guessing it was not round trip net positive in energy output⌠that time
I went ahead and changed the title. Can you edit the post to say what should go in it?
Or maybe have a category instead?
What I am missing is something like an Academic - AWESystems Forum category that is actually used and that does not restrict people from posting, or perhaps just doesnât restrict moderators from moving topics to there.
Many topics like this one could go there then: Airborne wind energy for Mars habitats
If that is created, the topic titles should have a set format as well I think, that should include the date of publication (or month or year) and the title, maybe also the authors and maybe the journal.
I think the category should exclude papers that have not gone through peer review, and not exclude master or bachelor theses.
I think the News category is a mess now.
Dougâs notes:
here was my partial post:
OK, so I posted the press-release breakthrough ânewsâ here, quite recently, regarding Chinaâs many âtyphoon-proofâ wind turbines, which, like the many ârendering-onlyâ press-release imaginary turbines weâve recently suffered through, are stated by the promoters, to be able to continue producing power during unGodly strong winds, such as typhoons.
Itâs only a few weeks later, and, well, they had a typhoon in China.
This article features a video of one - the side-by-side dual-turbine installation on a âYâ-shaped tower, said to âkeep producing powerâ in a typhoon with winds of 256(?) kph, in 90-foot waves.
[Watch as super typhoon batters worldâs largest two-headed floating wind turbine | Recharge (rechargenews.com)](https://www.rechargenews.com/wind/watch-as-super-typhoon-batters-worlds-largest-two-headed-floating-wind-turbine/2-1-1706325)The typhoon only came ânearâ the Y-shaped wind energy system, and there are certainly NOT â90-foot wavesâ, yet THE BLADES ARE NOT EVEN ROTATING, let alone âproducing powerâ.
Who TOLD YOU THIS WOULD HAPPEN?
Who told you that NO operator in their right mind would even TRY to keep a turbine operating in a typhoon? Why would they? To make a few hundred bucks worth of power, risking destruction of millions of dollars worth of turbines??Now letâs look at the âtyphoon-proofâ turbines that were closer to actually being HIT by the typhoon - they are all destroyed!
Here are a few articles trying to explain why the âtyphoon-proofâ turbines were destroyed. Just remember WHO told you the articles were false, and the turbines would NOT in fact be âproducing powerâ during typhoons, and most would not in fact, even survive.
[Why were âtyphoon-proofâ Chinese wind turbines flattened by Typhoon Yagi? | Recharge (rechargenews.com)](https://www.rechargenews.com/wind/why-were-typhoon-proof-chinese-wind-turbines-flattened-by-typhoon-yagi-/2-1-1707314)
[Typhoon destroys wind turbines that were supposed to be storm-proof | Watch (msn.com)](MSN)
[Super Typhoon Yagi flattens âstorm-resistantâ wind turbines in China | Watch (msn.com)](MSN)
4 posts were merged into an existing topic: Any ideas on how to change the length of an endless rope drive during flight?
vawt - 6 wind turbine axis vertical 1 generator
vawt - 4 wind turbine axis vertical 1 generator - all in aluminum
A post was merged into an existing topic: Info on hydrogen and (tethered) hydrogen aerostats
Dear Alice solarpunk yogurt ad that had:
Load shifting for heating and cooling is an old idea. During my days doing presentations to investors, I ran across a company called Ice Energy. The idea was to make ice at night with cheap nighttime electricity, and run air over it during the day to cool a building. At that time, I thought it was one of the few supposed clean energy breakthrough efforts that had an actual sound principle of operation. And really, that cheap nighttime electricity was likely produced by fossil fuels, so it might save money, but was not really reducing fossil fuel use. Ice Energy company had a presence here in Southern California, and I even noticed a neighbor of one of my ranch properties drove an Ice Energy truck. Today Ice Energy is out of business, and the truck now says âJ.C. Energyâ - the guyâs name is Joe, and he is an HVAC guy, still servicing the old Ice Energy installations, but Ice Energy itself went bankrupt a years ago. I donât know anything beyond that, but many ideas âsound goodâ at a bumper-sticker level, until the nitty-gritty details emerge and must be overcome, or the idea fades away. Everything sounds great as long as you are only hearing one side of the story. Just look at how great AWE sounded 15 years ago!
Iâm pretty sure I posted this same article, or its equivalent, under the flettner sails topic, a couple of days ago. I was asking in my post why they were not using flettner rotors, if they are so great, while pointing out that this ship not only âpromisesâ to completely power the craft over long journeys, not just âsave fuelâ, but also to reduce shipping times (by going faster?) compared to conventional, fossil-fueled, container ships. Of course that claim should draw some scrutiny.
The point of my post was the ostensible (stated) better performance of completely powering the ship, rather than just âsaving fuelâ - by using, well, (drumroll please) sails, as sails, (who knew?) rather than trying to re-reinvent that wheel, in light of 100 years of the flettner sails never having caught on.
It seems that my post mysteriously disappeared, and was reposted by someone else, perhaps someone who has deleted my posts in the past without any explanation? Maybe Iâm missing something here? Did I not hit âreplyâ and finish my post? Did I somehow not post? OK, Iâm going to hit âreplyâ now, so I know this will post.
20 SMALLEST MINI AIRCRAFT IN THE WORLD
Perhaps some aircraft could go towards some AWE designs.
For example (at 3:30 on the video, and on the website below) the Air One:
The propellers and wings of the AIR ONE do not tilt and the absence of machinery needed to tilt the propellers and wings reduces the weight of the aircraft.
We can notice that Air One is horizontal when taking off, and tilts forward in flight like a helicopter.
We can imagine a tethered AWE version taking off in the same way with the generators as motors, but flying tilting backwards (like the rotor of an auto-gyro). The profile of the blades would favor the efficiency of inclined turbines as secondary wind rotors, rather than the VTOL function which operates more rarely, but that remains to be seen.
Pivotal Ă 8:09 on the video above. Perhaps towards a very maneuverable AWES.