Model Forum / Radio Controlled / Air Models / February 2004

Gee,  I thought that this was what the :glider guiders" were doing now.

It's never a good sign when they can't explain how it works :)
Electrostatics are very well understood (and not really that
complicated), and so if they can't explain how something works, that
suggests that there's something funny going on.

Judging from the JFN lifter page
(http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/main.htm), it looks like this stuff
requires having electrodes below and probably above the thing you're
trying to lift.  Some of the pictures show this stuff, but many do not
-- but I suspect it's still there, just outside what is displayed in
the picture.

... which may be fine when you're trying to impress people by making
something float, but isn't practical for a real, useful craft.

That, and the equipment needed to generate the needed voltage seems to
weigh hundreds of times as much as the device they're making hover.

In short, I don't think this is going to work for you.  Even if you
can fix your power problem, I'll bet it's not going to make a useful
form of propulsion.  Something small like Newton's 3rd law is likely
to cause problems ...

Or maybe I'm just being too skeptical.  But I doubt it.

(Disclaimer: I do have a BS in Physics.  So I know enough about this
stuff to be dangerous, but there's people out there who know a whole
lot more.)