Wikipedia page

I put Sky Serpent on:


but I can be wrong: is it Sky Elephant?

https://t.co/QQ2T4VsvWS and https://t.co/Xd8ttgNfzg

1 Like

Thank You Pierre.
I remember when I was a little kid, my Mom was teaching me a bit of French:
Le Enfant, Le Elephant
“Lay Faw, Lay Lay Faw”
The baby, The elephant

The page was moved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_wind_energy be sure to edit the new page appropriately. The HAWP page is a redirect now. That needs to stay that way to not break the redirects. After the redirects are fixed to not go through the HAWP page anymore, it can be built up again

@JoeFaust, @Tom, @Rodread

1 Like

I think the two terms:

  1. Airborne Wind Energy
  2. High Altitude Wind Power
    are distinct and fundamentally different.
    Problems I see:
  3. People attempting to “force” their own “definitions”: for words already in common use;
  4. Bystanders attempting to dominate all thought, worldwide, in an art in which they have no particular accomplishment, experience, or complete understanding.
  5. Attempts to define assumed characteristics, ahead of the fact, for a nascent art whose characteristics are still undetermined.

“Airborne Wind Energy” includes any system supported by the wind against gravity, which could be at any height, even just a few feet above the ground, as many demos are. Kitewinder, and the experiental prototypes of Roddy, Me, and Chris B. being examples. I don’t think anyone would say operations under 100 feet high, even if supported by the wind, would be considered “high altitude”. (Unless the whole thing takes place at a high altitude location)
“High Altitude Wind Power” would more likely include the types of Airborne Wind Energy systems envisioned early in the current hype-cycle, where various apparatus was described as operating in the “Jet Stream”, stratosphere, “miles high”, “much higher than tower-based wind turbines”, etc. These types of described systems often include independently flying airplanes, gliders, etc. often mutually tethered, returning to Earth with stored energy, etc.

Note: “High Altitude Wind Power” could also describe any turbine installed at a “high altitude”, for example turbines above 5000 feet in mountain locations, or even here at Selsam Innovations / U.S. Windlabs in the high desert at 3600 feet. Wait, the tower is 120 feet tall, so it’s at 3720 feet.

3 Likes

Also: One could just as accurately use the terms:
“Airborne Wind Power”
“High Altitude Wind Energy”
etc.

1 Like

Looking at the Wikipedia page, it looks to be full of original research, which Wikipedia is not the right place for. The majority of the article could benefit from every fourth word having a [citation needed] tag after it – and then the citation also actually being relevant and reliable.

1 Like

Started editing.

There’s also this article, which is much better than the HAWP / AWES article:


Much of what I would put in the Airborne wind energy article is mentioned there. How should the overlap be handled? The overlap was present before the renaming. All awes are crosswind kite power. Even aerostats use turbines with blades moving orthagonal to the wind direction.

1 Like

A quick scan of the crosswind kite power page suggests otherwise? I only see systems I would classify as crosswind, no others.

Now there is no Crosswind kite power or similar section in the AWE article. There should be I think.

The AWE page should be more general I think, history, dangers, regulation, possible methods of operation, major current players, possible potential, and on and on.

And lots more pictures.

1 Like

My own definition of crosswind might not be common. If there’s something moving crosswind that counts for me. In that sense a horizontal axis wind turbine (hawt) is a crosswind system.
Not a crosswind KITE system though.
Apart from aerostats and maye some uncommon designs all could be called crosswind kite systems.
So what you mentioned could be included in the crosswind kite power artivle instead.
Just opening this for discussion.
I’m still in favor of having the AWES article.

You’ll have to be able to defend that your definition is mainstream, on Wikipedia. I don’t think it is. And if your definition were correct then it wouldn’t be a useful classification anymore, I think.

1 Like

Things move across the wind = crosswind ^^
Spoken languages are sooooo weird.
Let’s use the words that paint the concepts we want to convey in the most readers’ mind.

1 Like

Sure. Then our focus is different. Your focus is on the blades, my focus is on the whole system (the flying part). Is it stationary in the air or is it moving across the wind?

If you use what I believe to be the mainstream definition, the classification crosswind/non-crosswind is also useful. It demarcates two very different types of systems that need separate discussions instead of lumping them together.