Messages in AirborneWindEnergy group.                          AWES1677to1726 Page 14 of 79.
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1677 From: Doug Date: 6/19/2010
Subject: Re: Propeller characteristics

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1678 From: dave santos Date: 6/19/2010
Subject: Flying-Lever AWECS Link

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1679 From: dave santos Date: 6/19/2010
Subject: Mini-Quad Control-Bar

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1680 From: dave santos Date: 6/19/2010
Subject: AWECS Turret Dynamics Experiment

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1681 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/20/2010
Subject: History of Aerodynamics in America

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1682 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Laser in, laser out?

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1683 From: Doug Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: History of Aerodynamics in America

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1684 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Graphics are still missing AWE

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1685 From: Bob Stuart Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: History of Aerodynamics in America

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1686 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Two on one generator

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1687 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: AWE related oil protection

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1688 From: dave santos Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Spiral Straked Braid Tethers

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1689 From: brooksdesign Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: AWE related oil protection

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1690 From: Bob Stuart Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: Spiral Straked Braid Tethers

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1691 From: dave santos Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: Spiral Straked Braid Tethers

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1692 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Use AWECS to lift and move lake silt to useful places

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1693 From: Dave Lang Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: Spiral Straked Braid Tethers

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1694 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: Spiral Straked Braid Tethers

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1695 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: Spiral Straked Braid Tethers

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1696 From: Doug Date: 6/22/2010
Subject: Re: History of Aerodynamics in America

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1697 From: Doug Date: 6/22/2010
Subject: Re: Use AWECS to lift and move lake silt to useful places

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1698 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/22/2010
Subject: Velocity Cubed Technologies

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1699 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/23/2010
Subject: Power Generation with High-Flying Kites, Sky Sails or Wings

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1700 From: dave santos Date: 6/24/2010
Subject: AWE: The Movies

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1701 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/25/2010
Subject: SkySails graphic

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1702 From: dave santos Date: 6/25/2010
Subject: More RopeWay WindPower

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1703 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/25/2010
Subject: Quad-copter navigated by iPhone

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1704 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/25/2010
Subject: Dipping into EPO

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1705 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/25/2010
Subject: Public reads

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1706 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/25/2010
Subject: Heat from AWECS

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1707 From: Bob Stuart Date: 6/25/2010
Subject: Re: Heat from AWECS

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1708 From: harry valentine Date: 6/26/2010
Subject: Re: More RopeWay WindPower

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1709 From: Doug Date: 6/26/2010
Subject: Re: More RopeWay WindPower

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1710 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/26/2010
Subject: Re: More RopeWay WindPower

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1711 From: dave santos Date: 6/26/2010
Subject: Another Missing AWE Engineer- Yanek Kunczynski

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1712 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/26/2010
Subject: Re: Quad-copter navigated by iPhone

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1713 From: dave santos Date: 6/27/2010
Subject: Ground-Tether & Cart-Gen Method

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1714 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/27/2010
Subject: Fly a tweak

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1715 From: harry valentine Date: 6/27/2010
Subject: Re: Ground-Tether & Cart-Gen Method

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1716 From: harry valentine Date: 6/27/2010
Subject: Re: Ground-Tether & Cart-Gen Method (Abandoned Rail lines)

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1717 From: dave santos Date: 6/27/2010
Subject: Re: Ground-Tether & Cart-Gen Method

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1718 From: dave santos Date: 6/28/2010
Subject: Truth in Advertising Again

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1719 From: Doug Date: 6/28/2010
Subject: Re: Ground-Tether & Cart-Gen Method

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1720 From: dave santos Date: 6/28/2010
Subject: Re: Ground-Tether & Cart-Gen Method

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1721 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/28/2010
Subject: Re: Fly a tweak

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1722 From: dimitri.cherny Date: 6/29/2010
Subject: Re: Truth in Advertising Again

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1723 From: Dave Lang Date: 6/29/2010
Subject: Re: Truth in Advertising Again

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1724 From: Doug Date: 6/29/2010
Subject: Re: Truth in Advertising Again

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1725 From: dave santos Date: 6/29/2010
Subject: Re: Truth in Advertising Again

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1726 From: dave santos Date: 6/29/2010
Subject: Re: Truth in Advertising Again



Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1677 From: Doug Date: 6/19/2010
Subject: Re: Propeller characteristics
The reason for curved wind turbine blades is to avoid "tower thump"
something I guess people here could look up to learn about. Skystream for example places the rotor downwind of the tower, in the tower's wind-shadow, so curved blades prevent the entire blade being in the tower's wind shadow simultaneously.
Superturbine(R) overcomes tower thump, as well as "tower strikes"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqEccgR0q-o

by not placing blades directly upwind of a tower. Without the evil spectre of tower strikes, blades can be made much lighter (hence more flexible), using far less material, as is well-known among wind turbine designers.
-Doug Selsam
http://www.USWINDLABS.com
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1678 From: dave santos Date: 6/19/2010
Subject: Flying-Lever AWECS Link
 The link below shows a prototype "flying lever" AWECS set-up; a power kite, control bar, load-binder lever with a 16 strand bungee for a dummy load, & a 1-ton sand anchor. The lever is far heavier than needed (rated 19,000 lbs on the "static" side) as i am still hunting down smaller models from salvage. This sort of thing is well suited to pump water or a fluidic cylinder.
 
This is a crude working experiment, not a production design, WARNING: As shown the lever is too close to the control bar for safety. One should either rig a longer lead or run long reins to the bar. 
 
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1679 From: dave santos Date: 6/19/2010
Subject: Mini-Quad Control-Bar
The JPG linked below shows a tiny homebrew four-line control-bar matched to a modified Stowaway Parafoil of about .2 sq m.
 
Its very twitchy to fly such small kites, so its great training. Cheap RC servos are strong enough to actuate this scale, so lot of dynamic AWE automation reasearch can be done on the cheap.
 
 
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1680 From: dave santos Date: 6/19/2010
Subject: AWECS Turret Dynamics Experiment
Linked JPG shows a simple kite turret dynamics experiment made from small scrap in about 15 minutes. It runs with no surprises. Sadly, the image does not show the tiny bird house now mounted on it to protect the tiny machinery to come. A COTS bird house or dog house can cheaply provide this sort of shelter for mini-AWECS.
 
A nice finding is that such turrets with extended tongues promote kite stability by following & damping any tendency to loop.
 
 
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1681 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/20/2010
Subject: History of Aerodynamics in America
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1682 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Laser in, laser out?

Imagine
flying elements in a massive working flying AWECS array communicating with each other under robust expert program that maximizes effective energy production.

A step in that direction:

Kite system having a light transmitter and a light receiver

 James Christianson

Click image  for full instructions.

Patent number: 7487969
Filed: Dec 20, 2005
Issued: Feb 10, 2009
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1683 From: Doug Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: History of Aerodynamics in America
Here's a passage from the intro:
"As we shall see in Chapter 1 of this work, what da Vinci, the quintessential artist-engineer, lacked was hardly imagination or ingenuity. He made amazing sketches of birds in flight and, on paper, designed remarkable flying machines, including a flapping-wing “ornithopter,” a parachute, and a helicopter. What the great maestro and all other aeronautical conjurers of the next four centuries
lacked was a science of flight that could turn fantasy into reality."

Now bear in mind that while Duh Vinci and all the rest stumbled along fantasizing about flying at a Mary Poppins-esque, childlike level of (non)understanding, (Take your umbrella, 'cause Silvia's starting to rain) at this time WIND ENERGY was the leading source of industrial energy (besides horses). Airfoils had been producing lift to operate this main European source of industrial power for 500 years when Duh Vinci was alive. In fact I'll bet there were craftsmen alive at that time who were happy to teach Duh Vinci and the other artists and dreamers about lift and aerodynamics, but somehow the connection was never made. To build these turbines, the turbine designers of the day must have had a comprehensive understanding of the thrust forces on a rotor, which when turned sideways yields the lift force of a gyrocopter.
These wind turbines were used for any industrial process that required heavy-duty rotating machinery, such as, but not limited to, grinding grain and pumping water. These wind turbines had airfoils and gearboxes, a driveshaft with lubricated bearings, automatic aim, automatic overspeed protection, brakes, and even fire-supression equipment for when they machines "got away" and the brakes burst into flames.

What was the real mistake of the on-paper-only dreamers of the day? ( Well their mistake was the same as the one being made by many in wanna-be airborne wind energy today: ignoring hundreds of years of experience in the art. Completely ignoring all that is known in lieu of fanciful childlike sketches and endless hypothetization over minutae regarding these fantasies, with little or no discussion or acknowledgment of what has been known for 1000 years now, as opposed to the 500 years when DuhVinci & Co. were ignoring it.

This was around the same time that Newton and the royal society were denying that stones could fall from the sky, while the ignorant villagers brought in meteorites for analysis. That is "official science" for you: Just as likely to completely ignore the facts as it is to be at the leading edge.

They could have been flying, or at least gliding, in year 1200, since 100 mph airfoils were already the leading source of industrial power, and perhaps they were making and flying gliders way back then, and we just don't know about it.

Maybe DuhVinci was in an ivory tower designing his rotating spiral parasol helicopter, with an advanced wind turbine featuring high-speed airfoils, operating in view, right outside his window!

I read that DaVinci's real contribution to progress was inventing the wheel-lock pistol, (semiautomatic firearm) which allowed the "ignorant" commoners (who were finding all the meteorites and operating the airfoils of the windmills) to stand up against the king's army with it's armour. This was the beginning of the protestant reformation, where enforced ignorance from above was (at least partly) overcome, ushering in the Age of Enlightenment, where it became OK to acknowledge things like 1000 years of airfoil and wind energy history.

Have a day!
Doug S.
http://www.USWINDLABS.com
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1684 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Graphics are still missing AWE
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1685 From: Bob Stuart Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: History of Aerodynamics in America
I'd be interested in seeing any examples of well-shaped ancient airfoils.  The dutch classics seem to have the pitch curve right, but not much else.  The Wright Bros had to generate their own airfoil data, throwing out the available advise.  I have a book showing a selection of early propellers, with a note advising that the flapping types had been left out for good reason. 
The America's cup is named for the 1st yacht to have triangular sails cut with the warp parallel to the direction of force; others could not maintain a good shape. Contemporary wagon wheels frequently fell off, for lack of understanding of the forces involved.  Ships had finally been given shear bracing, after centuries of leaks caused by the caulking having been sheared by normal working.  Ancient steel was sometimes superb, but the methods used were just discovered, and certainly not understood properly.  DaVinci used to draw machines with an extra gear that would cause them to lock up if built without his advise, as a crude form of patent, adequate to the day.  Newton spent most of his time on things that were more alchemy than science.

Best,
Bob Stuart
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1686 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Two on one generator
[ ] Trigger the state change by automatics; system reads itself and times changes. [ ] Keep the two elements apart (Consider second pulley on groud set lateraaly; consider smart control of flight bodies for veering by have the two bodies set to fly off downwind: left to left, right to right. [ ] Drawing shows collapse method, but implied is also angle-of-attack alteration method on potentially rigid aircraft. [ ] Flight elements could be trains of lifting sub-elements, though drawing shows symbolic flight body. [ ] Cross-winding motion may occur, though drawing would thus be over-simplified. [ ] Scalable from toy, through sport, to huge MW grid/storage complexes. [ ] Multipliable. FairIP/CoopIP jpf
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1687 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: AWE related oil protection
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1688 From: dave santos Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Spiral Straked Braid Tethers
The following applies particularly to kitelines set crosswind in high wind. Lines swept along wind direction are not so drag penalized.
 
Streamlined kiteline is obviously attractive to reduce kiteline drag, but its core problem is less well known; simple foil-sectioned lines "strum", This effect causes more drag than simply flying round line. However one works on the problem, economic or technical, the trade-offs are frustrating.
 
A low-tech ancient option is twisted line. It has a spiral texture that works just like the spiral strakes added to smokestacks to reduce buffet (in other contexts- flutter, strum, gallop, etc). Unfortunately twisted line acts as a spiral spring at risk of kinking & snarling up, & often requires swivels to tame.
 
Round braided line has no innate twist & a texture that damps strum somewhat. Braids also come in ovoid sections & these can be given controlled twist for further damping. A simple spiral strake can be made on the braid by wrapping on a small thread or string in a long spiral of an optimized damping geometry. This string can be glued/taped/sewn on at the factory & might serve other purposes such as power or communications.
 
 
fairIP/coopIP
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1689 From: brooksdesign Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: AWE related oil protection
I saw them on the news last week and have been chatting with the MIT guy about awe powering the cameras as well as setting up an online open source invention group to help solve big problems related to man made and natural disasters. Even pitched a Mythbusters/American Chopper style TV show to a producer friend.
-brooks
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1690 From: Bob Stuart Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: Spiral Straked Braid Tethers
I was astounded to learn that helicopter blades carry a heavy load of ballast near the leading edge.  It is there to prevent flutter.  We might do well using steel wire with a light plastic fairing.  A modified insulation extruder would also protect piano wire from rust.  If weight is more important, a Spectra line with a lightweight foam fairing could work.  On a rig with airborne generators, the conductor could ballast a Spectra tension member behind it.  Almost anything can halve the drag of a cylinder, and getting to 1/4 is not too hard.

best,
Bob Stuart
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1691 From: dave santos Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: Spiral Straked Braid Tethers
Bob,
 
Sadly, one can't just put a light fairing on line & expect it to fly stably & outpreform round line, the optimal load bearing shape.  Any attempt to fair line without some amazing trick simply results in reinventing the same self-oscillation as the Membrane Wing-Mill taps. The causes are multiple, for example, the catenary ("belly") in an airfoil kite line tends to tension the trailing edge causing it to cup. If the TE is not continuous structure this does not happen, but it can no longer help take load. Any added weight to an AWECS needs to be very productive. Nose-weighting line in-itself would not pay & AWE conductor lines are possibly too heavy to compete, even disregarding drag. As noted before, balsa fairing as used in the original MIT study is not a practical option. There are many other gotchas to plastic fairings, like storage on reels messing up its fine structure.
 
daveS
 
PS Re: History of Aerodynamics- Its sad this work is so unquestioningly nationalistic about a topic that is universal & the topic of kites is bungled. But as to your search for fine premodern foil examples, there are many, especially at low Re, like the Chinese Puddle Jumper. The Northern European Windmill did in fact ultimately evolve very modern characteristics like hinged "free-wing" compliance, helical pitch, a clean LE, negative AoA tip washout, etc.. The ancient Egyptian Wood Glider has convincing foils. Boomerangs have great foils- asymmetric, swept, tapered, twisted, turbulated, etc.. I have seen native Rabbit Sticks from South Texas that would do any aerodynamicist proud the way they maximize mass & minimize drag with turbulation ridging. There is nothing wrong with arrow fletching as a thin delta wing. An asymmetric Proa Hull is an optimal low aspect hydrofoil & the Crab Claw Sail is a wonder. The Mexican Sombrero develops strong downward Bernoulli lift & tends to stay on your head. One could go on & on...
 
 
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1692 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Use AWECS to lift and move lake silt to useful places

Lake killing silt might be lifted and transported by AWECS and tethered aviation tactics to useful sites.

Potetential useful sites:

  • Habitat development
  • Build long hillways that double as soaring transport pathways, parks, glider launches, windbreaks.
  • Fill strip mining scars
  • Soil amendments for farms and urban gardens
  • ?
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1693 From: Dave Lang Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: Spiral Straked Braid Tethers
I might add to the below (and which likely predates all of man's kiting, and defuses any contention that kites were the "original inanimate aerodynamics development").......may I introduce the:  Maple Seed.

It is hard to watch a maple seed in its delightful dance of slow auto-rotative descent, and not be compelled to examine one in detail....upon which you find examples of a design featuring span-dependent blade foil-section and chord-length, as well as "differential blade twist", all acting in perfect symphony with gravity and centrifugal force so as to make a one-bladed autogyro functional. It is amazing to see what a large array of more or less apparently mindless random influences, when guided by a patient but persistent "optimizing feedback principle" (ie. maple tree species' survival) can develop.

Ah that we could do likewise for wind power! Well maybe our persistence will prevail.....given of course, a good optimizing feedback principle like "reduction to practice" :-)

DaveL
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1694 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: Spiral Straked Braid Tethers

Spiders have been flying themselves  for eons in more than one way.

However, this note does not deal with that matter, but a second life of leaf kites (while leaf is on tree, it is tethered and goes through many kiting motions for the first life of leaf kites).  Of course leaves have known many distinct types of secondary kite modes; that later; now rather a focus is just on a world of kiting formed between spiders and leaves where the tether of the spider gift captures a dislocated leaf to form a compound that is a kite system: here is a video of one format of a leaf kite under double tether:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckN69Y_r8BI

A micro generator could be arranged at tether moorings to do tertiary works.
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1695 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/21/2010
Subject: Re: Spiral Straked Braid Tethers
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1696 From: Doug Date: 6/22/2010
Subject: Re: History of Aerodynamics in America
Bob:
You make my point, thanks. All one needs to do is study the design of these old classics to see they were hundreds of years ahead of everything else. The wind turbine blades had ribs, defining an airfoil, covered with a skin, just like today's airplanes. The problem is, everyone ignored them. They said "We're used to flying kites, and so we think airplane wings should be like kites!" Ignorance of having it all worked out and right in front of your nose, but not wanting to look. Heck the Wright Bros. could have used a 100-year old wind turbine instead of inventing a wind tunnel to test their airfoils. But at least they persevered and didn't give up.

I just read a very sad story of the guy who invented the ship's propeller (steam-ships had paddle wheels back then) and how he spent 20 years getting anyone to listen because he relied on government programs and trying to convince "experts", instead of just building them and going forward.

Doug Selsam
http://www.Selsam.com
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1697 From: Doug Date: 6/22/2010
Subject: Re: Use AWECS to lift and move lake silt to useful places
I concur. Also kites may have helped lift the stones of the pyramids. I think kites might accomplish heavy-lifting tasks routinely if developed seriously.
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1698 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/22/2010
Subject: Velocity Cubed Technologies

Bob Austin and company seem to be going along the lines of Sky WindPower.

Velocity Cubed Technologies, Inc

Velocity Cubed Technologies, Inc. is located in Huntsville, Alabama and can be contacted: E-Mail : Info@VelocityCubed.com
Phone : (256) 883-5493
FAX : (256) 883-5436
Mail : 11521 Gilleland Drive
Huntsville, Alabama 35803
 

All are welcome to send notes:  Notes@EnergyKiteSystems.net

Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1699 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/23/2010
Subject: Power Generation with High-Flying Kites, Sky Sails or Wings
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1700 From: dave santos Date: 6/24/2010
Subject: AWE: The Movies
Bat 21 (1988) is a war film starring Gene Hackman & Danny Glover where Gene's character is stuck behind Viet Cong lines & conjures up a kite-based spin-sock electrical generator to power a radio link to coordinate Danny's rescue efforts.
 
Waterworld (1995) presents a post sea-level rise Earth where Kevin Costner's character sails around in a bad-ass trimaran. Chased by armed pirates on jet-skis, he deploys a ballistic folded Cody War Kite, of all things, & thus kitesailing escapes.
 
The latest AWE movie is an Austin-based (aka "Little Hollywood") project Brooks disclosed last year about the dramatic birth of clean kite power for a world in crisis. Based on our true story, but with humorous exaggeration. Great visuals. Play yourself. Proceeds from the movie will support the next round of AWE development & a possible sequel.
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1701 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/25/2010
Subject: SkySails graphic
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1702 From: dave santos Date: 6/25/2010
Subject: More RopeWay WindPower
Earlier posts extolled cheap & reliable rigging methods based on steel ropeways suspended from terrain to "fly" pioneering AWECS. Harry Valentine presented a concept of a "sideways laddermill" suspended across a valley. Wayne German, independently envisioned vast crosswind AWE like "vertical blinds".
 
This post adds detail from Aerial Lift Technology as used in mining, logging, crane operations, modern ski-lifts, & tourist tramways. As glamorous or technical as some examples seem, the principles are simple. A pulley clothesline with clothespins is a basic detachable aerial payload ropeway system. To generate power just backdrive the system by wind acting on the "laundry". 
 
Prototype AWECS are easily testable on existing tourist ropeways. Multiline systems create highly stable control points in mid-air & keep gallop in bounds. Funitel & 3S system experience suggests that AWECS can safely hang in howling wind too strong for passenger comfort. The largest tramway gondolas easily carry 200 seated passengers suggestive that single AWECS elements rated to about 10mw are possible. A compelling flygen demo is as easy as hanging a small COTS HAWT from a detachable chairlift & winding it out to a spectacular spot.
 
Modern hybrid ropeway systems mix conveyences like detachable gondolas & chairs. By such methods diverse AWECS modues can reeled out like laundry into strong clean wind. Hotswappable generators, gearboxes, & turbines allow tailoring a turbine mix to seasonal or daily forcast conditions. Flygens connected to nearby transmission lines already at mountain altitude have a considerable advantage over those that must carry all their conductor aloft. Sweeping tethered foils mounted with flygen turbines can go nuts without special automation. High altitude AWE can be flown off of ropeways incorporated primarilly to avoid launching & landing headaches.
 
KiteLab Ilwaco designs & builds diverse AWECS harvester modules for testing. Many concepts develop useful power, but require comparative evaluation to decide best practice. Combined kite & ropeway tech provide a robust engineering language. Prototypes tested in parallel by kite-lifter archs are now also tested on model "ropeways" hung from tall trees. Mnay options are attractive. Gondola "flygen" turbines use a drive shaft to stand-off a support cable while stabilizing & balancing the turbine. Such turbines hung from cable freely orient to wind direction, including rising & falling currents. Standard sailboat sails can be rigged ladder-mill style along a 3S cableway, with passive self-tacking cycles, for a high COTS AWE option.
 
NOTES
 
Terrain is a grand tool for airborne windpower research. Mountains thrust up into superior wind, but also create turbulence & shadows that ropeways can avoid. Isolated peaks with radiating ropeways can select favored wind directions. Gap wind occurs where a mountain ridge dams across prevailing wind with a gap allowing enhanced wind to blow thru. Narrowing valleys aligned with prevailing winds also boost wind.  Many follow a daily "breathing" oscillation when driven by sea & land breeze, or a longer cycle driven by passing weather systems. Where prevailing winds dominate,valley & gap winds can be pretty much unidirectional.
 
Valley winds are accelerated jets with highly laminar-flow cores that only blow along a valley, not cross-valley. Such a feature can drive design in interesting ways, for example, a side box-canyon might be an ideal wind shadow for handling wings at ropeway WP terminal stations (a cavernous Terminal Shed of sheet metal can also create wind-shadow). The world's best gap & valley wind sites are an untapped terawatt scale resource where AWE methods can incubate in energy densities resembling high altitude wind.
 
============
 
In cableway rigging a Skyline is a single top track line along which loads move by gravity or haul lines. A Track Line is fixed cable along which trollies roll. A Haul Line is moving cable used to pull loads along a track line. A super simple ropeway uses gravity to let elements out. A single Haul Line suffices to pull them back. Similarly, a halyard can pull an elemant up & gravity return it. For level runs a Haul-Back Line is added.
============ 
Sailors call it "line", some riggers insist on "rope", & engineers tend to refer to "cable", but the terms are tolerably interchangeble. An excellent introduction is gondolaproject.com  
============ 
Retractable power conductors along cables (electrical & fluidic) are handled as Festooned Cable, moving cable hung from trolleys on a track rope that stows compactly at a fixed end & can be extended over long distances along a track cable.
 
www.hubbell-gleason.com/Parts/Festoons/618046.pdf
 
fairIP/coopIP
 
 
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1703 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/25/2010
Subject: Quad-copter navigated by iPhone

National TV is spotting the quad-copter run RC by iPhone.  Robotics for level flight see top drawer. Carried camera can be part of the system.   The Quadcopter uses WiFi (Wireless) to connect to the iPhone.

AR-Drone   for Augmented Reality.

Parrot AR-Drone Quad-copter navigated with iPhone    French company.

Connect conductive string, fly the baby to altitude and kite that baby with power off and gen-status on! Could the robotics keep the kiting going with generation of electricity?  Charge the ground iPhone with the AWECS version.

Huge AWECS awareness?  Seems like support for Velocity Cubed Technologies, Sky WindPower, and others.

http://tinyurl.com/QuadCopterLIFT

Yet feast on other QuadCopters: http://tinyurl.com/imagesOtherQUADcopters

I can feel the iPhone charger kited AWEquad coming.  And the giant quads of AWE companies throughout the world. Can you feel it? 

=================================
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1704 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/25/2010
Subject: Dipping into EPO

 

 

 

 

 
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1705 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/25/2010
Subject: Public reads
Mile-High Mega Kites Could Pull Giant, Floating Power Plants

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/hydro-paraplant/#ixzz0rvkKenFO
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1706 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/25/2010
Subject: Heat from AWECS

Ultimately there will be a comprehensive exploration of AWECS that focus on making things hot.

  • Immediate use of heat.
  • Storing heat for later use as heat
    or for converting the thermal energy to electricity.

[  ]     When would it be an excellent choice to have an AWECS
making things hot as the primary purpose of operations?

[  ]     How would heat-making AWECS operate?  Every operating AWECS already makes some heat which heat mostly goes to injure system parts or radiate as waste to the environment; the target here is to generate heat from wind by AWE technology.

JoeF

 
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1707 From: Bob Stuart Date: 6/25/2010
Subject: Re: Heat from AWECS
I'd go with an air pump and orifice to create friction, with air as the working fluid.  The pump would be real cheap, as almost anything "bad" would be good in this context.  Small jet aircraft, such as helicopters, use air from the compressor, bled off just before combustion to supply cabin heat, and it is very effective.

Bob Stuart
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1708 From: harry valentine Date: 6/26/2010
Subject: Re: More RopeWay WindPower
A gondola-type cable system along a coast could be driven by a kite or skysail moving back-and-forth in a transverse direction to the wind. This would reduce the cost of using a ship being pulled by a skysail . . . electric power could go directly into the grid or into storage. System would work well in regions where winds are predominantly uni-directional, however, there may be a way by which to eventually expand the design concept to operate in onmi-directional winds.
 
 
Great thinking Dave,
 
 
Harry
To: airbornewindenergy@yahoogroups.com
From: santos137@yahoo.com
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:07:07 -0700
Subject: [AWECS] More RopeWay WindPower

 
Earlier posts extolled cheap & reliable rigging methods based on steel ropeways suspended from terrain to "fly" pioneering AWECS. Harry Valentine presented a concept of a "sideways laddermill" suspended across a valley. Wayne German, independently envisioned vast crosswind AWE like "vertical blinds".
 
This post adds detail from Aerial Lift Technology as used in mining, logging, crane operations, modern ski-lifts, & tourist tramways. As glamorous or technical as some examples seem, the principles are simple. A pulley clothesline with clothespins is a basic detachable aerial payload ropeway system. To generate power just backdrive the system by wind acting on the "laundry". 
 
Prototype AWECS are easily testable on existing tourist ropeways. Multiline systems create highly stable control points in mid-air & keep gallop in bounds. Funitel & 3S system experience suggests that AWECS can safely hang in howling wind too strong for passenger comfort. The largest tramway gondolas easily carry 200 seated passengers suggestive that single AWECS elements rated to about 10mw are possible. A compelling flygen demo is as easy as hanging a small COTS HAWT from a detachable chairlift & winding it out to a spectacular spot.
 
Modern hybrid ropeway systems mix conveyences like detachable gondolas & chairs. By such methods diverse AWECS modues can reeled out like laundry into strong clean wind. Hotswappable generators, gearboxes, & turbines allow tailoring a turbine mix to seasonal or daily forcast conditions. Flygens connected to nearby transmission lines already at mountain altitude have a considerable advantage over those that must carry all their conductor aloft. Sweeping tethered foils mounted with flygen turbines can go nuts without special automation. High altitude AWE can be flown off of ropeways incorporated primarilly to avoid launching & landing headaches.
 
KiteLab Ilwaco designs & builds diverse AWECS harvester modules for testing. Many concepts develop useful power, but require comparative evaluation to decide best practice. Combined kite & ropeway tech provide a robust engineering language. Prototypes tested in parallel by kite-lifter archs are now also tested on model "ropeways" hung from tall trees. Mnay options are attractive. Gondola "flygen" turbines use a drive shaft to stand-off a support cable while stabilizing & balancing the turbine. Such turbines hung from cable freely orient to wind direction, including rising & falling currents. Standard sailboat sails can be rigged ladder-mill style along a 3S cableway, with passive self-tacking cycles, for a high COTS AWE option.
 
NOTES
 
Terrain is a grand tool for airborne windpower research. Mountains thrust up into superior wind, but also create turbulence & shadows that ropeways can avoid. Isolated peaks with radiating ropeways can select favored wind directions. Gap wind occurs where a mountain ridge dams across prevailing wind with a gap allowing enhanced wind to blow thru. Narrowing valleys aligned with prevailing winds also boost wind.  Many follow a daily "breathing" oscillation when driven by sea & land breeze, or a longer cycle driven by passing weather systems. Where prevailing winds dominate,valley & gap winds can be pretty much unidirectional.
 
Valley winds are accelerated jets with highly laminar-flow cores that only blow along a valley, not cross-valley. Such a feature can drive design in interesting ways, for example, a side box-canyon might be an ideal wind shadow for handling wings at ropeway WP terminal stations (a cavernous Terminal Shed of sheet metal can also create wind-shadow) . The world's best gap & valley wind sites are an untapped terawatt scale resource where AWE methods can incubate in energy densities resembling high altitude wind.
 
============
 
In cableway rigging a Skyline is a single top track line along which loads move by gravity or haul lines. A Track Line is fixed cable along which trollies roll. A Haul Line is moving cable used to pull loads along a track line. A super simple ropeway uses gravity to let elements out. A single Haul Line suffices to pull them back. Similarly, a halyard can pull an elemant up & gravity return it. For level runs a Haul-Back Line is added.
============ 
Sailors call it "line", some riggers insist on "rope", & engineers tend to refer to "cable", but the terms are tolerably interchangeble. An excellent introduction is gondolaproject. com  
============ 
Retractable power conductors along cables (electrical & fluidic) are handled as Festooned Cable, moving cable hung from trolleys on a track rope that stows compactly at a fixed end & can be extended over long distances along a track cable.
 
www.hubbell- gleason.com/ Parts/Festoons/618046.pdf
 
fairIP/coopIP
 
 



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Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1709 From: Doug Date: 6/26/2010
Subject: Re: More RopeWay WindPower
Good to hear of this simple and apparently workable plan. Simple, cheap - no reason not to build one today. Nice to hear that someone can easily build what thousands daydream about. Eagerly awaiting your results. Please send us a link to the video showing power generated after you get it running.
:)
Note: A similar system at a somewhat large scale was tested in Tehachapi at Oak Creek wind farm many years ago - you might check into their results and save a few mistakes along the way.
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1710 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/26/2010
Subject: Re: More RopeWay WindPower
Click image.
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1711 From: dave santos Date: 6/26/2010
Subject: Another Missing AWE Engineer- Yanek Kunczynski
Dr. Zhang, mysterious Father of Chinese Gigawatt AWE, is not the only missing player of interest. Our new Industry Most Wanted is Yanek Kunczynski, aka "King of the Mountain", a brilliant rogue engineer who disappeared into Mexico to work on renewable energy ropeway tech. 
 
Yanek began his career as a talented engineer for Poma, a leading European developer of aerial ropeways. Yanek left the company to develop his own detachable aerial lifts & funitels for the ski resort glitterverse. His advanced designs undersold competitors until a string of fatalities related to quality-control & maintenance shut him down.
 
Some consider him a serial killer while others defend his vision & boldness. Repenting youthful error he began work on renewable energy based on aerial lift, but as civil judgments mounted he fled to Mexico claiming he would found a mountain research center, which, who knows, might be hidden in a volcano & staffed by cartel supermodels in smart uniforms. For all we know he may even be working with Dr. Zhang.
 
This was almost ten years ago & the trail is cold. An LA newspaper piece has a private detective successfully tracking him to "La Paz" to serve him more papers, but several Mexican towns go by that name. Most are in my homeland along the Texas-Mexico border, the famous "Old Gringo Trail" where Ambrose Bierce, legendary author of the Devil's Dictionary, disappeared a century ago.
 
KiteLab Group is offering a reward to find Yanek Kunczynski. Helping solve AWE will allow him to pay off his victim's families.
 
 
More clues-
 
Somebody, likely Yanek himself has been juicing Lift Engineering's Wikipedia page
 
 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lift_Engineering

Yanek's lawyer has not yet returned my phone call-

Scarpello, Huss & Oshinski, Ltd.

(775) 882-4577

600 E William St
Carson City, NV 89701 39.1705 -119.7626

 
These are the La Pazes in my turf- La Paz, Chihuahua, Coahuila, & Nuevo León. I may even already have spotted him in 2005 at the El Ciello Biopreserve in the fastness of the Sierra Madre not far from La Paz, Nuevo Leon. I was formally introduced to a relcusive elderly Polish-American "MacGyver" known for fixing anything broken on that fromtier.
 
Somebody else check out La Paz Baja California & Michoacan.
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1712 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/26/2010
Subject: Re: Quad-copter navigated by iPhone

Some quad high lift explorations had some challenges:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7jENWKgMPY
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1713 From: dave santos Date: 6/27/2010
Subject: Ground-Tether & Cart-Gen Method
"Crosswind Power" is the superior geometry for AWE, SurfaceGens the safest configuration, & Kite Carts an attractive way to drive a generator at high rpm.
 
Dave Lang's 2004 preliminary DF study, Using Kites to Generate Electricity: Plodding Low Tech Approach Wins, has two schemes called "buggy" & "sail" by Joe Hadzicki & Jose Sainz, respectively, where a cart runs crosswind pulling a line unreeled from a generator at each end of the run. How the crosswind path is to follow wind shifts is undefined & generator duty-cycle is not quite 50%. Other AWE schemes involve a generator cart on a circular or oval track with conductive rails. The track takes wind from any direction but has a high capital cost & a large part of a loop cycle is direct downwind & direct upwind, with little or no power generated. All these cart schemes must somehow take tremendous side forces by side resistence of the wheels to the rails or surface. The following setup resolves these issues.
 
A Surface-Tether consisting of a tensile cable & electrical conductor is run from a single elevated central anchor point to a generator cart. Like the "buggy/sail" methods, the cart shuttles back & forth crosswind, but downwind of the anchor. Like the loop track, the cart carries the generator. Resistence to side force is optimally provided by the tensile cable, with wind taken from any direction. Generator duty cycle is far higher & capital cost far lower than prior schemes. 
 
fairIP/coopIP
 
 
 
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1714 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/27/2010
Subject: Fly a tweak
Help tweak the file directly. Notes in the form on that page go to the page as well as to AWEIA editors.
 
Best of lift to you and your teams,
JoeF
 
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1715 From: harry valentine Date: 6/27/2010
Subject: Re: Ground-Tether & Cart-Gen Method
There are railway designs that use different wheels for vertical loads and transverse loads (eg: Montreal rubber-tire subway).
 
The concept below could work at certain coastal locations in Newfoundland, Canada . . .  there are abandoned railway lines and rail rights-of-way in that region.
 
 
Harry
 
To: airbornewindenergy@yahoogroups.com
From: santos137@yahoo.com
Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2010 08:41:52 -0700
Subject: [AWECS] Ground-Tether & Cart-Gen Method

 
"Crosswind Power" is the superior geometry for AWE, SurfaceGens the safest configuration, & Kite Carts an attractive way to drive a generator at high rpm.
 
Dave Lang's 2004 preliminary DF study, Using Kites to Generate Electricity: Plodding Low Tech Approach Wins, has two schemes called "buggy" & "sail" by Joe Hadzicki & Jose Sainz, respectively, where a cart runs crosswind pulling a line unreeled from a generator at each end of the run. How the crosswind path is to follow wind shifts is undefined & generator duty-cycle is not quite 50%. Other AWE schemes involve a generator cart on a circular or oval track with conductive rails. The track takes wind from any direction but has a high capital cost & a large part of a loop cycle is direct downwind & direct upwind, with little or no power generated. All these cart schemes must somehow take tremendous side forces by side resistence of the wheels to the rails or surface. The following setup resolves these issues.
 
A Surface-Tether consisting of a tensile cable & electrical conductor is run from a single elevated central anchor point to a generator cart. Like the "buggy/sail" methods, the cart shuttles back & forth crosswind, but downwind of the anchor. Like the loop track, the cart carries the generator. Resistence to side force is optimally provided by the tensile cable, with wind taken from any direction. Generator duty cycle is far higher & capital cost far lower than prior schemes. 
 
fairIP/coopIP
 
 
 



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Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1716 From: harry valentine Date: 6/27/2010
Subject: Re: Ground-Tether & Cart-Gen Method (Abandoned Rail lines)
 
 The tracks of abandoned rail lines that run through rural windswept regions may provide the foundation upon which to develop kite-based wind power conversion . . . . pull the railcars in alternate directions . . . electric generators on the railway axles . . . . use 3rd rail to pick up the power and transfer power to the grid or into storage
 
 
Harry
 



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Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1717 From: dave santos Date: 6/27/2010
Subject: Re: Ground-Tether & Cart-Gen Method
Harry,
 
New sideloadable track would work, but the.neat thing about a single-anchor "tether-car" is that one need not pay for anchor resistance all along a whole loop.
 
Abandoned rail lines are attractive for AWE, but they aren't adapted to much sideload unless the track is banked or the kite sideload is spread along a lot of track, maybe with pulley bridling to ballasted cars.
 
I have just made & tested a single-anchor tether-car with a granite ballasted skateboard. Synchronous kite flying gets it whipping back & forth with a sort of bow-string acceleration. Its very promising.
 
On could pretty easily rig a TGV (Electric Bullet Train) as a tether-car driven by a GigaFly Parafoil & have a convincing megawatt scale AWECS,
 
daveS
 
 
 
 
 
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1718 From: dave santos Date: 6/28/2010
Subject: Truth in Advertising Again
As the AWE field develops into a stampede its increasingly urgent to vet players with poor or fatally flawed schemes who nevertheless seek to attract investors with false & misleading claims. The best solutions are easily overlooked in a climate of hype. High profile failures will harm us all.
 
Insiders know there are already such players who have gotten a free ride by everyone, form the biz press to academia, as nobody wanted to harm the newborn AWE industry. Now that the baby is growing well (JoeF counts over 80 players) its time to begin to self-regulate & create a certification process. Its kinda like waiting for the right time to vaccinate a baby.
 
AWEIA is informed of this issue & considering how to best implement certification standards. AWEC will have to develop a position as well. Clearly some sort of review body is called for. It should be free of direct conflicts of interest & represent expertise in aviation safety, business ethics, & so on.
 
This issue has been presented to the Forum before & will continue as a major priority.
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1719 From: Doug Date: 6/28/2010
Subject: Re: Ground-Tether & Cart-Gen Method
The "track" is also called a "race".
The "cars" are also called "balls".
Together with magnets and a stator, the result is called "a generator"
The "kites" traveling across the wind are called "blades".
The "path" is also called "a circle".
A planar array of such kites traveling in a circle is called "a rotor"
The "tethers" are also called "fibers".
The configuration of the tethers following the circular path resolves to "a tube".
Since the path goes into the sky, the result is a tube, made of fibers, extending into the sky.
According to U.S. Patent 6616402, that tube extending skyward is called "a driveshaft/tower"
Many levels of "kites" (blades)are combined to drive a single generator.
The result the flying version of "a Superturbine(R)"
You are back to Superturbine(R) where all roads lead...
:)
(Superturbine(R) is a registered U.S. Trademark)
Doug Selsam
http://www.USWINDLABS.com
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1720 From: dave santos Date: 6/28/2010
Subject: Re: Ground-Tether & Cart-Gen Method
Doug,
 
Tether-Car AWE can be driven from a high flying kite in great wind beyond any practical tower.
 
It really is hard to imagine high-altitude AWE requires "driveshaft/towers" instead of kitestring.
 
If all roads lead to the SuperTurbine (R), surely beyond it is the towerless UltraTurbine (TM).
 
 ;^)
 
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1721 From: Joe Faust Date: 6/28/2010
Subject: Re: Fly a tweak

So far, one of 112 persons has entered something to improve the reached file. I bet we could get many more entries. The file is intended to become a meta-checklist for large AWE industry aspects. Surely I did not get it all in a first effort. What is missing.

Anonymous note sent to us in June 2010 for publication .
Note was entered in the form:  http://energykitesystems.net/AWEaspects/index.html

What does the note advance? What is valid in the note?  

Here is the first non-me entry: 

Advantages of a Nonaxial wind turbine
• Operate at higher altitude
• Not exposed to storms
• Ground maintenance and safety
• Less vibration (100x)
• Low tech (metal or fabric)
• Much less expensive gear box (100x)
• Vast increase in the number of productive wind sites
• Low visual impact
• Short lead time installation
• For a wind of 12 mph the glider speed is 100 mph with a L/D of 8.
• For a 20 ft span, the lift is 4000 lb and thrust is about 400 lbs, giving an output of about 50 kW.
• The combined length of the Kevlar cable is 1/2 mile and for a strength of 10,000 lb, the weight of the cable would be approximately 300 lb
• The many degrees of freedom opened by the design allow it to be built more economically.

AWE editor finds a link using nonaxial wind turbine phrase:

NonaxialWindTurbines.ppt

 
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1722 From: dimitri.cherny Date: 6/29/2010
Subject: Re: Truth in Advertising Again
If we were a group with 80 commercially available AWE systems, perhaps a certification much like SWCC would make sense. But since not one of us yet has an AWE system for sale, isn't THAT the vetting process?
Regarding foolish investors - caveat emptor.
Now let's all get back to work building something someone is willing to buy.
- Dimitri
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1723 From: Dave Lang Date: 6/29/2010
Subject: Re: Truth in Advertising Again
Dimitri

I totally agree with you. How could an AWE "certification group"
(spawned from a group that is yet to produce a single functional,
economically proven system) pronounce another system's "legitimacy"?
We are all struggling via a prodigious amount of specifically focused
technical exploration and testing to show that our respective schemes
might be successful enough to warrant serious investment.

This "certification" idea reeks of personal vendetta and inquisition.
Those vertical axis spirals you see setting motionless in people's
yards do not seem to have dampened big-business's appetite for large
vertical axis turbines. I haven't encountered a single person who has
"denounced all wind power" based on the dubious value of a Magenn for
instance....

DaveL
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1724 From: Doug Date: 6/29/2010
Subject: Re: Truth in Advertising Again
Good luck in stopping the inevitable scammers who will inevitably emerge.
This has already happened in regular wind energy.
It never stops. You can't stop them; and you are unknowingly playing their role. They seldom even understand wind energy enough to realize they are just the latest newbies who haven't bothered to read a book or two on wind energy. You CAN'T talk common sense to them. They just go on and on with their emotion-based claims of superiority, never able to demonstrate an actual machine that offers this superior performabnce. They can spend all day looking at meters showing no power and rationalize that it must be the generator's fault, or the bearings, etc. Anything but lack of basic knowledge.

It's freedom of speech and nobody will ever be sufficiently motivated to shut them down. And if they were they would probably shut down all of us, because without results, we all look the same to the average person. The scammers often don't even know that they are repeating well-worn ruts in the road of losing designs. And a losing design, touted as a winning design, is the essence of the scam.

The symptoms of the scam machines?
Always the same:
Often Roof-mounted (but not always)
Usually drag-based (tension pulling downwind) (sound familiar yet?)
A retraction upwind cycle that produces no power and uses power (sound even more familar?)
Cloth sails or sheets of metal etc., rather than blades with hard airfoils; (ring a bell?...)
This is the main point I've been trying to tell you: You ARE filling the role of one of the scammers you are trying to warn against:
The drag-based cloth-sailed machines that never seem to actually work, but "seem" like they would, and are always good for one more press-release.
One more claim of superior understanding backed up by... zero power on a daily basis.
Of course no amount of reasoning will stop (them).
All of the standards you will ever want to implement will address the points I've been bringing up from day 1: How much power does it make and how long will it run before it breaks, if at all?
How much extra material (cost) are they throwing at a situation that requires very little material? Why does their rotor (or kite) use too much area for its swept area, thereby insuring slow operation? Why even use cloth when it is proven to tatter and be not usable? Of course facts don't matter to the scammers who don't understand any fact really, let alone the fact that they ARE the scammers. Why do they insist on using downwind forces when crosswind forces have proven superior for at least 1000 years so far? Or if they ever agree that that, that they needed it explained to them when they thought they were already an "expert".

OK gotta go test a new 7 KW Superturbine(TM) that runs unattended and runs a meter backwards reliably through a UL-listed inverter.

Let me tell you how this field is from experience: Few people will be interested in your theories. They want to see reliable machines that are a good value and can be warranted for at least 5 years and the new standard for small turbines is a 10 year warranty.
And I will also say the people who try and implement standards get nothing else done, and spend years with endless meetings etc., so good luck with setting standards for an "industry" without a singloe machine running anywhere in the world today, that does not power even a single home of business at this time. What you're talking about is like the Wright Bros discussing policies relating to frequent flyer miles from American Express cards that don't even exist yet, or perhaps policies regarding whether they will provide a pillow for you on your flight.
Doug Selsam
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1725 From: dave santos Date: 6/29/2010
Subject: Re: Truth in Advertising Again
Dimitri & Dave,
 
What is proposed is a future independent AWE certification process composed of recognized experts like aviation inspectors, aerospace academics, & wind power veterans. The conventional wind power industry's developing certification efforts provide one model.
 
Despite high-profile claims that the FAA will not regulate us under 2000 ft, airworthiness certification is still an FAA responsibility, even in remote settings, to protect personnel. Such established safety norms should not be confused with "Inquisition".
 
KiteLab Group in fact already has many AWE products for sale (starting with Sputnik Membrane Wing-Mills in 2008). Any working system or component ever presented  by KiteLab on this forum is available for commercial development. KiteLab sees passing a sound certification process as a commercial advantage over hype-driven starts.
 
To adopt "caveat emptor" as our standard would be poor business ethics. We want to attract informed investors (who may be someone's grandmother), just as the modern business world has many reporting standards for investments. That these proven business processes create clear winners & losers is actually the opposite of a feared "vendetta" dynamic.
 
The primary reason for the proposed AWE certification is a safety culture even beyond current legal requirements. If every AWE developer is required to disclose safety related failure modes & incidents as part of certification, we are all safer. Developers who would fail such reasonable standards can currently opt-out, or even better, productively retool their biz plans & technology to pass the higher standards as they inevitably evolve,
 
daveS
 
Group: AirborneWindEnergy Message: 1726 From: dave santos Date: 6/29/2010
Subject: Re: Truth in Advertising Again
Doug,
 
You make great points about "scammers" in conventional wind. Of course we cannot force AWE scammers to desist, but we can make it much harder for them to rip-off or hurt someone.
 
daveS