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A comment on Silent and Simple Ion Engine Powers a Plane with No Moving Parts. Parent comment

Re:Silent and Simple Ion Engine Powers a Plane with No Movin... by tyingq on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @12:02PM (#18504111)
This would have to be pretty light given the low thrust, so durable isn't the first thing I think of. Or does durable have some special meaning with aircraft?
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Re:Silent and Simple Ion Engine Powers a Plane with No Movin... by TremendousJudge on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @12:13PM (#18504211)
I just meant "being able to fly around without any maintenance being performed on it"
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Re:Silent and Simple Ion Engine Powers a Plane with No Movin... by Junk_Collector on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @12:20PM (#18504273)
In theory. It could be made with no moving parts and steered via thrust vectoring by varying the location of the negative voltage. Lightweight high voltage equipment like that is very expensive to make at those reliability levels currently, but the idea of an operational window of a year+ doesn't seem like a pipe dream. We'll probably see applications in military intelligence (spying) and drug smuggling before other more civilian uses.
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Re:Silent and Simple Ion Engine Powers a Plane with No Movin... by tyingq on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @12:19PM (#18504262)
Ahh, okay..."no moving parts". I get it now.
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