Like DougS tells in an old post AWES can be realized by autogyro-helicopter mode as both wind turbine and flying vehicle.

Studying Sky WindPower four rotors,I see two things making it too heavy for low (600 m) altitudes:the weight of gearboxes,and the weight of the structure carrying the rotors.

The great advantage of autogyro-like over crosswind flygen kite is the maximization of worked space,and also the simplified control,the disadvantage being weight.

I look after some other possibilities.Have you some ideas to eliminate both gearboxes and said structure?

If autogyro-mode can be enough light for low altitudes and wind speed above 4 or 5 m/s,it would be a possible scheme for all altitudes.

PierreB

http://flygenkite.com

http://wheelwind.com

Geez Dave S. what's the matter? Wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Don't worry it will get better. Yeah I seemed to think I had invented it, but since I forget more than most people learn, I was just glad to see I had patented the idea. I agree with the shortcomings you cite. Still, it's not as dumb as Magenn. I have plenty of dead horses to beat besides Magenn. I think it's funny that nobody can do AWE, but everyone can brag about their AWE future. I hope I get around to it, but I'm not NASA or Honeywell - they supposedly have credibility, or at least some people think so. But it is fun to make fun of the people who claim they will solve AWE in a few weeks or months or even years, knowing they don't have a clue. Magenn is just an easy example that one could explain to a complete idiot. Even ("test-everything") YOU can understand that Magenn was a joke, yet investors were fooled, and let's face it, Magenn WAS THE poster child for "AWE" for a couple years. It was my repeated protestations that removed the Magenn image from AWE promotional material. And it was MY mocking Dave North and NASA for placing an image of a blimp supporting a wind turbine in a 99.6% Vacuum, that got THAT Dr. Suess image removed from NASA promotional material. To them, that image was "raising awareness". I agree: it raised my awareness of their lack of ability to clearly scrutinize conceptual reality. An image like that tellss the world "We are in a dreamland - ccmpletely out-to-lunch! I think you should test a Magenn machine. Just to be sure. It's part of "everything" right? So what's stopping you? You say you "test everything" right? As a matter of fact I think you say you've tested more AWE schemes than anyone. So if that's the case, why aren't you doing any of them? Is it that all the ones you've chosen to test were unworkable? That your choice was faulty? Or did you just do such a crappy job building them that they just SEEMED to not work? I mean, pick a lane. Either you are really bad at picking what you will test, or really bad at building them. Yes "AWE" in quotes to distinguish it from AWE without quotes. Most of the rest of the schemes would require more detailed explanation that idiots could NOT understand. It is good to see that you have not lost your edge, and that anything I post will draw you out in earnest, even if it has nothing to do with you. This forum is great but I think it can have the effect of making us feel like we are doing something about AWE by posting here everyday. That may be true of Joe but not the rest of us. What we are really doing is procrastinating and being lazy. It is easier to sit here and type nasty crap than to build anything that will work. That energy has to go somewhere, so I understand if you can't think of anything that will work, let alone build it, after all your hype, that must entail a LOT of frustration, and so I accept that your frustration is directed at me, someone who can do AWE with both hands and half my brain tied behind my back, as you have seen. Even getting to a workable and seemingly economical configuration would be only the start. If AWE turns out to be anything like real wind energy, it will take years to get any model to survive extreme wind events. and of course we have already heard 10 years of newbies like you saying they will just shut their machine down when strong winds threaten - old news, not an answer, doesn't work. Any wind energy model must be able to protect itself from the owner as much as anything else!

Damage by breakaway kite: 

http://www.e-volo.com/ :In the description below the aircraft with many small rotors seems far lighter than a one or two (counter rotating) rotors electric helicopter.A way for AWE?

PierreB

"The VC1 is a vertical take-off and landing aircraft that can hold its position precisely. The ascending force as well as the stability in the air come from its 16 propellers. With its four arms, it measures approximately five by five meters (17 by 17 ft) and has an empty weight of around 80 kg including the batteries."              

Bob can probably offer expert opinion on this.

Say, we plan a megascale arch system over deep water,

Dave S please confirm...you normally want to keep the ends of an arch a
fairly set distance apart. correct.?
So a cheap means of providing rigidity (normally supplied by the ground)
would be advantageous.

If an seaborne arch system is to rotate.... It's got to be easier to use
a swivelling spar than changing footing position around a ring of
anchors.

Can we make large rigid neutrally buoyant spar structures using
hydraulically sealed bags water filled bags?
How big and strong would they need to be to survive the pressures we
will present?

This way with a fairly fixed position, the mothra could be put to use
pumping, lifting, dredging.

Well, I can offer SWAG - the principle used to build Voyager, which circled the globe on one fill-up.  (Scientific Wild-Ass Guess)

 SWAG -

An advanced example of phased tugging: 

Can we share a collaborative version of Christofs mindmap on kitepowercoop.org ?

On the subject of shared knowledge.
The wikipedia AWE page  lacks a link to any AWE forum .

In considering the uniquely valuable Scottish material I might get to present at awec2013

I remembered this
a fabric treatment for clothing which has
a coating of "nano-titania" - commonly used in sunscreen lotions - can catalyze a reaction in which light and oxygen rid the air of the pollutant nitric oxide by turning it into nitrate that washes away. According to  Catalytic's website, the catalyst has the same effect on the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. Titania is also known as titanium dioxide, which chemists in China are applying to self-cleaning shirts.

If kites are not too high over a city, this may be a useful skin or laundry cover

Maybe I'll just turn up in a kilt and talk about it that way

Saw these FLUMILL models being discussed on a linkedin tidal energy conversion group today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=QB1Ih_f20B0

http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=8PEiWgvDUSI

As a quick disclaimer, he is surely under a pseudo name (I'd bet the farm he's called professor crackpot) and He must surely have stolen that idea from Doug..??? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

This is great - self-cleaning kites! I think in combination with an AWE credit union you have cracked the code!

Nah he stole it from SpiralAirFoil Dan'l, who stole it from Leonardo Duh-Vinci, who failed to notice all those windmills demonstrating the proper way to engage an open flow for continuous kinetic energy exchange and maximum thrust. Dan'l, now is the time to strike for a patent infringement suit, while they still have money, but most people don't realize how dumb they are yet! Go get 'em! Maybe Dave S. will be on the jury! Yes I would say you have found one more Professor Crackpot - they are everywhere! Just a wild guess that this professor has no experience with regular rotors...
:)
Doug S.

I like your new term "firehose of ignorance" :) Are you making sure to spend all your time doing all the wrong experiments so as to insure no progress or results? Just checking...
I have another crackpot warning of how his advanced theories will change the world of wind energy. He got kicked off the regular forum years ago - now he bothers people by personal e-mail. Same finger-wagging Nostradamus-like, slightly-scolding warning tone of "Lookout for me - even though I have shown now results thusfar, look out world!" Same type of vague statements indicating certainty of future progress: "please expect..."
Then of course it's back to the Wright Brothers, to which I obligingly point out the funny movies of the OTHER people who DIDN'T "get it" who had... flapping parasols and flopping arrays of wings that looked like kites, right? While the Wrights themselves used what? Propellers, right?
Doug Selsam

Also, as I've pointed out, professor Crackpot never knows about all the Professor Crackpots that have come before him, which is why they all repeat the same few missteps. In this case, we need not look beyond the name. Yup, by the time I had read the first 3 letters of the name, I already knew it was bunk. (Well of course that and the fact that someone said they had a better turbine!).

You may remember me telling you that any turbine using any form of the word "Flow" in the name was automatically a losing design. How can I be so certain? What meaning does that word "flow" really carry?

Well the first example that comes to mind is "FLoWInd", a vertical-axis windfarm machine from the 1980's produced in the thousands (at least many hundreds). The company went out of business from (wait you gotta guess why...) failures in the stronger winds of Tehachapi, too many warrantee repairs.

The second example I can think of is "FloDesign" the high-solidity shrouded turbine funded by Kleiner Perkins, where I barely convinced the principals that it was a bad idea they had wasted 7 million dollar on - where is FLOdesign now?

The reason it is a symptom is hard for me to explain - kind of emotional more than mechanical, but using the word "FLOW" or "FLO" is a telltale clue of the state of mid of the inventor: The inventor thinks that HE is the first to notice that FLUID actually FLOWS! Yes, armed with his unique knowledge, that HE understands the FLOW of fluid, HIS ideas will prevail. He imagines that all those Fluid Mechanics Aerodynamics experts who have beaten all this stuff to death for a hundred years just don't understand the true nature of a fluid flowing. Fluids "FLOW"! If only the rest could understand it like the good professor! They FLOW, they FLOW FLOW FLOW, and by really GRASPING that fact of FLOW, NOW you can REALLY understand how to truly optimize things. I mean YOU can't, because of course it is "over your head", but the good professor has.

I don't think I did a very good job of explaining, but if you check going forward, always watch out for that "FLO" or FLOW" series of letters as a symptom of Professor Crackpot, just like little red bumps are a symptom of chickenpox!

Check all the turbines you can find using those letters in the name and I don't think you'll come up with anything successful.
:)
Doug S.

Do you want one or both:
stringisters
or
stringistors

to follow the "transistors"
?

Rod, Bob, Joe & Dave,

Who is on the current SWP team?

DMurr, 

How do you figure it is a partial validation of SpiralAirFoil?
Is that like the saying "eat **** since a million flies couldn't be wrong?" How does a second person repeating someone elee's mistake validate that mistake? And how is it that you can validate a mistake in the first place? tYou act as though there are no o0bjective standards by which to analyze power extraction from a moving fluid - as though your mere pronouncement, or the pronouncement of any other know-nothing, carries any weight, or has any meaning.

You're only up to two (2) flies so far. Is it a partial validation of DuhVinci too, or is DuhVinci beyond where your superstition will permit you to keep making your ridiculous statements? Are we up to 3 flies if we include DuhVinci? If windmills had already been around for 500 years, how stupid did DuhVinci really have to be anyway? I think "clueless" and "oblivious" describe DuhVinci with regard to this one invention. Well, AND his hand-cranked battle tank whose wheels inexplicably counter-rotated(?).

Ok so someone "validated" (in your mind) counterrotation for dense arrays, and just like you believe everything Honeywell said about their laughingstock turbine, you believe every Professor Crackpot's press-release version of "science". Especially if I point out how dumb it is, in which case you are doubly convinced. Ah your everflowing firehose of ignorance. What about whale bumps? Changing the face of wind energy as we speak, just like you, right? You and NASA. Test everything. Dave, if you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything.
:)

Well hmph! :))) I'm talking brand names of "improved" turbines.
People who have not witnessed this parade of funny turbines don't see the humor.

P.S. Last I remember Dave S. was promoting the Honeywell Rooftop turbine as a good innovation, after seeing a non-operational example that had already burned out in the first decent wind. This is what I mean by how extreme the lack of understanding in wind energy is, which explains why Professor crackpot is still able to repeat DuhVinci's mistakes after 500 years.

The fact that you can actually LOOK directly AT a brand new turbine that has already BURNED OUT, that DOESN'T WORK, then promote it as a great innovation while arguing with the idea that overspeed protection is the main challenge in wind energy, just goes to show you that this field is mostly idle speculations by know-nothings. In your case, you CHOOSE to know nothing in the face of being shown the facts. It's OK, we in wind energy are used to it.

I pass along my long-time observation that any turbines that use the word "flo" usually suck. You of course counter my statement, and say instead that they are great! That is your daily "firehose of ignorance". So if you are so smart and so right, where are your counterexamples? Where are your good turbines that use the word "flo" in the name? Come on Dave, we're waiting for you to finish showing everyone your vast extent of knowledge. And like all trouble-maker wannabe newbie would-be wind energy inventors, you will have no answer to any pertinent or pointed question - just more name-calling and trouble-making. Why not just lay on your back and wave your arms and legs and scream?

AWES community member Sjef Beaujean has extended his studies. 

Wind Turbines and SkySails 

Some questions:

 

• How waterproofness between coils and magnets is it secured?
• How transmission by air (between wings and the ring) instead ball bearings is it feasible?

PierreB

Another advantage of low aspect ratio foils is that they shed flotsam
and are stronger than longer more slender blades.

Someone tried horizontal axis water turbines in the East river, three
maybe 10:1 aspect ratio blades on a familiar generator pod.

The failure rate was something like 80% in six months.

Something about water being 800 times denser than air I expect.

Andrew

Stringistor logic and control for mothra trap deployment switching in all wind angles
 by Rod Read, April 23, 2013

Wow you sound increasingly insane - but I know it is all quantum stuff, way over our heads. In the far future, people will realize what a visionary you were. Meanwhile, speaking of making up words like "stringisters" I will share a word-origin story: Like most people, I was barraged by daily e-mails from Nigeria, promising 50 million dollars, popularly known as "The Nigerian Scam". I tried writing back a few times and even got a couple phone calls from someone I called "General Maboomba". I thought "Maboomba" would be a good name for it. So I googled "Maboomba" and got back 2 hits. I immediately registered the domain "maboomba.com" and started throwing around the word "Maboomba" in my postings, just to see if I could get a new word going. Google "maboomba" today: About 714,000 results (0.36 seconds)
:)
Maboomba to you on this wonderful day!
PS haven't you heard? "Stringisters" is the name of an all-girl Country Band: unmarried sisters playing stringed instruments.
And of course "Stringistors" are the fans!

Yeah I shook my head again after hearing how all the tidal and river turbines were breaking blades left and right. "More idiots" I thought, imagining the years of training culminating in zero ability to conduct simple arithmetic to determine the required strength of the blades. All they needed can be looked up in tables! Bear in mind that water currents are more predictable than wind, without the extremes. All that was required is for them to be realistic, but then we hear about all the blades breaking.

The answer of course? Well, the answer to ignorance (for some) is more ignorance - like taking your first step into quicksand! So the answer is to remove all those pesky blades that break and try to take the power from a stripped core of a Superturbine - creating an auger, like the ones the Superturbine patents overcame as prior art from thousands of years ago.

So I guess the question is whether an auger is a good way to extract power from an open flow. Maybe it's time for a college course in fluid mechanics, eh? Yeah, maybe someone should look that up. Ya know, augers. They DO have a name, ya know. and it has never included "foil"... let's see, "history of augers".... "Auger, open flow"...

Bbbbut Doug, if we looked up whether every one of these dumb ideas was disproven in the past, what would we do all day for fun? How could we keep squirting our firehose of ignorance if we had to do fact-checks? Come on, just when we were having fun! geez!
:)
Doug S.

The high incidence of blades breaking in water probably has a lot to do with the higher-density fluid also containing chunks of solid matter at the same density.  Sort of like a fleet of Hindenbergs cruising through a wind farm.  Scrap wood is particularly notorious for punching holes in hulls.  

April 2013 paper on VAWT, 

Sent out to various lists.