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Re:Silent and Simple Ion Engine Powers a Plane with No Movin... by superkuh on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @01:07PM (#18504694)
Not shown: all the momentum imparted by the launch itself.
Re:Silent and Simple Ion Engine Powers a Plane with No Movin... by thinkcontext on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @01:39PM (#18504904)
For the Nature paper they compared unpowered vs powered flight. Unpowered got about 10m, powered got to 60m, the length of their test facility.
Re:Silent and Simple Ion Engine Powers a Plane with No Movin... by tzs on Thursday November 22, 2018 @12:27AM (#18508061)
In that clip it is not slowing down, showing that the ion drive is generating sufficient thrust to sustain flight. It's irrelevant that it used assistance to initially reach that speed.