I would argue instead that the FAA thinks airspace is only for pilots.

We must convince them that a greater good is to allow some airspace to be used for energy production - just as some is used today for tall buildings and towers.

- Dimitri

Dimitri,   Airspace is for passengers too. Only pilots are presently qualified for safe operation.   The FAA can't change this reality for AWE players unable to become pilots,   daveS

Thanks for all the replies so far.

Yes, maybe 10N is a bit light, but the brake lines on a fixed bridle foil kite should not be very high. Flying mine it feels quite low, but I'm not sure how much force it will take to initiate control when sweeping the kite far above the wind speed.

Elastic is maybe an option. The other thing I was thinking is adding a bit of drag on the brake line to make sure it always pulls a little bit when reeling out.

I've heard of linear sailboat servo's, but that becomes difficult if the range of the control action is long.

I have thought about the turbine for the pod. It will have to be quite small not to add to much drag to the kite. That's why I want to go fixed bridle kite route as it requires far less control power and hence energy than LEI kites. Then again, LEI kites have higher drag anyway, so adding a bit more is not too much of an issue.

I'll play around some more.

Regards

Attachments :

. Say your stand in this thread.

sorry guys, I dont have a problem with the military. Any use they can get from my design that saves american lives and takes down the bad guys is a good thing.

Spacecannon

Come now, hooks and radioactive waste? Joe I like you too much to argue this, or are you playing devils advocate?
Most of the answers to this question would reveal features that I intend to build into mine.
Here are a few suggestions
AWTs are not feasible as offensive weapons platforms, this has been proven.
AWTs are good for defensive operations at fixed installations with large surrounding acreages that act as a buffer to attack.
Its not the military that is the peoples problem, its the politicians the tell them what todo.
Spacecannon

---- Joe Faust <joefaust333@gmail.com

Yikes......OK OK......That is a lot scarier than
some idiot firing off a dirty suitcase bomb in
Manhattan! It's even scarier than a plane
dumping a few 100 lbs of carbon conductor wires
on a power substation :-|

DaveL

KSWA #2

Release thousands of double-kite workers that robotically stay in the jetstream crowding the sky to bother traffic while beaming spurts of lasers at ground targets to disrupt communication and wear down the energy and resources of the opposition.

 

Spacecannon,
I have not seen the proof you noted:    "AWTs are not feasible as offensive weapons platforms, this has been proven"

I am not sure of any role here; Dave Lang proposed that someone bring forward war AWE. That someone, I suppose, could be any or all of those who are looking at the matter.

 

 

 

Good try Joe...but that's not warfare.....I'm afraid you're simply
describing the "development phase" of the high-flying AWE "dual-wing,
wind-gradient harvesters" as engineers wrestle with developing
reliable laser-power beaming accuracy as they dash-about from
on-high, unwittingly frying the unwary ground-lings who happen to
stumble in their way :-)

DaveL

On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 1:05 AM, spacecannon@rocketmail.com
<spacecannon@san.rr.com nomen omen :)

anyhow, why did Joe Faust post that question? Are there news on such a
topic I don't know?

--
Carlo Perassi - http://perassi.org/

On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 9:15 AM, dave santos <santos137@yahoo.com I've previously missed this thread so please forget my previous question.
We shouldn't take any action helping KSWA 'cause they (bad guys,
armies... you name it) are so good to find their way by their own. :)
So I vote with Dave Santos.

--
Carlo Perassi - http://perassi.org/

Great response! Thanks, Dave.

spacecannon@rocketmail.com schrieb:
The problem is of course is than no one side is necessarly the good side and the
other the bad side. It's a question of perspective and often the same people are
both good and bad. Therefore developing effective offensive weapons is per se
evil in my opinion, whereas developing defensive weapons might not be.

So, if cheap kites could be used to disturb or bring down fighter planes,
helicopters or drones of any nation's army, or impede their communciations, I
would regard this as a good thing, but if kites could be used to make cheap bomb
delivery systems, I would regard this as a bad thing, no matter in whose army.

Therefore if in doubt whether your design could be used for offensive or
defensive purposes: don't develop it.

Theo Schmidt

Stay upwind of the enemy with giant drag devices that can rip apart cities.
No wait - stay downwind! A regiment advances into the wind with propellers mounted on lances, razor blades embedded in the leading edges!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFfV2e9zqrE

Get back upwind! Drop smart bombs from your kid's kite! No wait - drop bottles of smart water! No wait - drop smart cars on their heads!
Oh no! Too expensive - just drop a brick!
Doug Selsam
http://www.USWINDLABS.com

http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/from-ireland-across-to-cumbria-by-kite-1.749654?referrerPath=news

 

Click:    Source 

Energy-Generating Kite Park Offers Extreme Green Parasailing

at Abu Dhabi beach

DeTect Inc. (detection technologies)

A new tropospheric radar wind profiler

 

Dave Santos,

I am an American citizen, this is the team I belong to, the organization I defend and complain about. Human technology changes but human behavior does not. The United States has less than a tenth of the population of the rest of the world and we could fall if we are not strong, Rome did.

You can call me a hawk, but does that mean you're a chicken?
You started the name calling, do you really want to go down this road?

Spacecannon



---- dave santos <santos137@yahoo.com

I, for one, would be happy to see one of the largest consumers of energy try to find a way to lessen the impact of their actions. I'm not a huge fan of wars but imagine how we could change the world if we left behind independent, self sustaining, free energy systems in their wake. I'm sure Doug would be more than happy to help out with the energy needs of the Iraqi people. I'm sure Dave would too....if he could get someone to DO IT FOR HIM....for free....
-brooks (in the last week of JOB crunch time).

dave santos schrieb:
...
Thanks for the data. It would of course be more useful if references were available.

I can add my own involvement. In the eighties I was employed by Keith Stewart's
firm Stewkie Aerodynamics in GB. Most of the work was on kites for sailing and
sporting purposes but there were some military contracts. In particular we
developed some unmanned kite-sailing systems which could theoretically deliver
bombs/torpedos but would be detectable and some systems for "electronic
warfare", e.g. disturbing radio or radar, or optical surveillance. I decided
that the devices were sufficiently ineffective for me to have many scruples on
helping with their development. Anyway I regarded the systems as neutral or
dual-use, that is usable for both peaceful and for military purposes, even if
funded by military contracts. My main interest was unmanned sailing systems as
oceanographic buoys. I later worked for (ret.) Air Commodore C. T. Nance, but in
spite of his career his interest was not military at all, but purely for energy
generation and sailing.

I guess most AWE projects would be dual-use, e.g. pure energy generation.

At some point such technology may become extremely offensive. E.g. early
model-aircraft enthusiasts might be consternated that today aircraft drones are
routinely used by military forces to murder people daily, even outside war
areas. I find this extremely despicable, especially as not just the targetted
people are murdered, but mostly also their families and/or bystanders, or even
completely wrong groups of people.

Of course this is all peanuts compared to what the early developers of atomic
energy went through, mostly well-meaning men who unwittedly unleashed horrible
forces and substances on mankind.

"If in doubt, DON'T!"

Theo Schmidt

All big-talkers on the big-talker circuit, wasting millions to hear their own hot air. None has a single working system that could work unattended to actually generate reliable power in any sense.
Products for sale?
Let's buy a Magenn.
No really let's buy one! Come on! They are an "established" AWE company with an AWE product for sale. Theyre sponsoring a conference. They must be serious, right?
Let's take them seriously! No really!
Let's talk numbers.
Let's talk seriously about Magenn: System cost versus system output.
Let's see a published power curve for Magenn.
Let's see a cost per kWh generated for Magenn.
let's see operational & maintenance procedures for Magenn.
Let's see how Magenn handles storms and 80 mph+ winds, typical issues that any wind energy system must take in stride without excuses.
Let's see a cost per kWh for ANY supposed contender.
Let's see ANY relevant standard of progress for ANY industry applied to this "industry".

Wind-based weapons systems would be far different than AWE, just as a bomb is different than an internal combustion engine. On the other hand if you have a reliable power system, it will be used for powering its first weapons system the moment it is convenient or expedient to do so. Nothing you can say will stop that. Just don't worry about it if you don't have a reliable, productive wind energy system of ANY type, anyway. All branches of the military want to go green. Are you going to refuse to sell them your fully-developed wind energy system to power their bases? Will you prevent the military from buying your system at Home Depot? Exactly what would you do to prevent the militarty from getting one of your fully-developed and reliable produscts, or do yo think they want to buy your used exercise equipment as a valuable antique artifact example of early AWE? Is not a clean military better than a dirty one?

A teeny bit of progress of a single working system would be great.
The self-glorification of bloggers continually preoccupied by phantom problems they will never encounter is a sad decline from the real 3-D world, into the modern fictitious world of nearly 100% delusion.
The blog-o-sphere... (sigh)
You don't HAVE a working system, or any real progress toward one, just a lot of daydreams and an acknowledgment that kites fly and wind is in the air, so please forget about all the "military applications" and "airspace permitting problems" of a system you don't have.
Try developing a working system commensurate in scale even with a child's kite, and get back to us when it's reliable and useful.
The expression "get a life" comes to mind...
:)
Doug S.

Dave Santos,
The peaceniks always miss the point and distort he facts.
1) Nobody appreciates peace than the solder, and it would be nice to turn all the swords into ploughshares, but lets see the Iranians do it first.
2) Japan and Germany can take their stance because they were defeated and ARE PROTECTED BY US!
3) Chickens get eaten by other animals even roosters.
4) It is better to have a strong defence like Switzerland, I dont recall them being conquered once in the last 500 years.
5) Human nature hasnt changed, every time a group of people start waving flowers and singing to the butterflys the get conquered.
6) Dave go ahead and stay the pacifist while someone else protects you, sounds like a free rider to me.
Spacecannon


---- dave santos <santos137@yahoo.com

Attachments :

Well, this is getting OT, but I can't resist trying to dispell some of the myths
here! :-)

spacecannon@san.rr.com schrieb:
A society consisting of peaceniks can exist, one of warniks can't; it's an
unstable lifeform. However most people are both at the same time.


Iran has been horribly mistreated. It was a thriving country- Then there was the
dictatorship of the Shah, supported by the US. Then the war against Iran by
Sadam Hussein's Irak, again supported by the US. Where were the "good guys"? And
now again the double standards of everybody ganging up on Iran about their
atomic fuel processing even though they are legally in the right to do so, but
not against countries who illegally have actual atomic bombs. I don't like the
Iranian atomic program either, but I like the atomic bombs of India, Pakistan or
Israel even less, and again these are actively supported, e.g. by the US. And
the US seems to be the only country who ever used atomic bombs preemptively and
is again considering this, or at least was under Bush. Good guys? But the
problem of Iran today is exactly that their rulers think like Spacecannon
instead of like Dave.


With their involvement in Afganistan, Germany is far from peaceful. A while ago
they bombed a fuel truck in Kundus, killing very many innocent people. This
involves me personally because I try to boycott products from war-faring nations
and here many products are German, even my email address here!


The Swiss used to be extremely beligerent, wars everywhere. Switzerland was
occupied by France in 1798 which actually brought modern thinking to the area
and a new start in 1815. There was a setback, a civil war in 1847, and it wasn't
until 1848 until the birth of "peaceful" Switzerland. Staying out of WWII had
little to do with defense but with playing the Nazis and the Allied Forces
equally in a so-called neutrality. Both sides could have run over us easily but
decided it wasn't worth it. Now the challenge is to stay out of NATO.


Mankind must become more or less peaceful to evolve or even to survive. We are
well on the way, but it will be a long struggle with many setbacks. Biologically
human nature can't change, but our attitudes and life-styles can. An example is
shown by our nearest relatives, chimpanzees. Most chimpanzees are aggressive
like we are, war-faring and even canibalistic. The variety called bonobos are
peaceful, although genetically nearly identical. Researchers think this is
because where bonobos live they are not threatened by predetors and can gather
on the ground and chat. Mankind now has, like the bonobos, ever increased means
of chatting, e.g. over the internet. And it's more fun being a bonobo, they have
lots of sex!


6) Dave go ahead and stay the pacifist while someone else
It's the opposite way around. Spacecannon-type thinking is holding us back,
wasting enormous resources, killing many people directly and many more
indirectly. What is called defence is often offence. Even if we cannot all
become pacifistic, we must stop being offensive.

Cheers, Theo Schmidt, Switzerland

Thanks Doug for the graphic illustrations. Shouldn't we all say 'NO' to Militarization of AWE NOW? JohnO

Theo, warnik? come-on pinhead, people who want a strong defence are not necessarily warmongers. And I can agree with several of the things you've said, but human nature takes thousands of years to change its genetic, chemical, and 90% of the people on the planet are not pacifists, and from where the rest of us stand Pacifist=Loser.
Spacecannon


---- Theo Schmidt <theosch06@yahoo.de

Spacecannon,
 
                            That's me, "Pacifist" and meak does not mean weak. Was "pinhead" necessary?
 
                                                                    Dan'l
 

---

To: AirborneWindEnergy@yahoogroups.com
CC: theosch06@yahoo.de
From: spacecannon@san.rr.com
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:51:41 +0000
Subject: Re: [AWECS] The Militarization Pattern [OT]

 

Was warnik necesssary?
you guys are hippocrits, start fights and cry peace.



---- Dan Parker <spiralairfoil@hotmail.com

Hey Dave, (you surrender monkey), I may be mistaken but I'm fairly confident that while ARPA-E has some letters the same as DARPA, it has no relationship to the military. It's under the auspices of the DoE. Check out the webpage. http://arpa-e.energy.gov/

- Dimitri

Greetings all,
When did AWE group become a political group? We should not be voting on something that we have no business pushing on someone else.
I dont want political organizations or governments in my bedroom, house, yard or business. As long as things are legal we should keep our noses out of anothers business. This is the kind of thing busibodies get involved with, little old christian ladies nagging you about the weeds in your lawn.
I see AWE group as a technological advancement group.
Spacecannon

spacecannon@san.rr.com schrieb:
True. They are often frightened people. Unfortunately this insecurity leads
people to behave irrationally, e.g. preemptive attacks, i.e. defence becomes
offence. Even if such people do not want war, they wage war just the same. When
you add the people who do want war, either because they gain financially
(industrial-military complex) or are robbers (oil interests) or love fighting
(many young men) or are completely misguided (e.g. religious nutcases like
extremist talibans or some "Christian" evangelicals), you end up with the messy
world we still have.


Well, that's a good start. I agree with many of your statements as well.


This is not complete. While the genome itself does take time to change, modern
evolutionary synthesis (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_evolutionary_synthesis), shows that on top
of this are epigenetic effects which occur rapidly and ideas (memes) which also
influence us greatly.


There are many degrees to pacifism. I would guess that 90% plus of the people
would agree that peace is worth striving for, even if 90% plus will not "turn
the other cheek" even if they claim to be Christian (or Bhudist or whatever).
However already it is quite uncool to celebrate military aggression for its own
sake as was the case in previous centuries. So we are headed in the right
direction. But we have a great challenge before us: the growing populations and
dwindling resources are great motors for war. So get those AWECS going!

Theo Schmidt

Well said.  Once people are frightened, they forget elementary things like checking kill ratios to determine the leading aggressor.  

Here's an idea.
Why don't we all just get back to work making a commercially viable AWE? Back here in the real world.
I'm with Selsam on this. Let's all shut up about possible uses until we have some numbers - including revenue dollars.

- Dimitri

This whole discussion is an irrelevant waste of time bordering on delusional self-glorification, imagining ones' half-thought-through, (and that is being generous) nascent ideas are at the stage of being weapons systems, imagining ones self as a simultaneous genius & savior for solving the energy crisis while somehow making sure the solution can't be militarized...(maybe you should SOLVE that energy crisis before congratulating and glorifying yourself) imagining ARPA-E is a military endeavor...

I can pretty much guarantee at this point that no government program will ever try anything more efficient. The level of procedural complexity precludes innovation. The policies virtually guarantee that anything truly promising must be ignored in favor of status-quo and entrenched player. It's a personality contest involving who is the most popular and convincing-sounding liar. They don't even think they have a solution to find, so they refuse to look. The actual level of brainpower is feeble, with hands tied. ARPA-E and all the rest have been rendered "harmless" by their own bureaucracy and I predict that no matter how much money they are given, I and people like me, will develop better solutions, faster, out of our garages.
Doug Selsam

Team member  on PowerPlane  cyclic power/reel-in method; he is detailing parts.  Two photos are presented.

Rick Kraaijeveld

"This 13 meter PowerPlane is an intermediated stage for the 1MW PowerPlane,

which has a 25 to 30 meter wingspan and will hopefully be produced in two years time."

AWEIA members are free to post patents or post furthering study comments on any already exposed patent:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kitepatents/

Hundreds of patents have yet to be given a thread start.

Develop comment along any line you wish, AWE or other.

As of today 200 thread starts show.