MIT scientists create plane with no moving parts

Some 115 years after the first powered flight, scientists have developed a radical new approach toward flying in the form of a small, lightweight and virtually noiseless airplane that gets airborne with no moving parts like propellers or turbine blades.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineers on Wednesday described successful flight tests at an indoor campus gymnasium of the unmanned airplane powered not by engines that burn fossils fuels but by ion wind propulsion, also called electro-aerodynamic thrust.

The aircraft, called Version 2 EAD Airframe, or V2, weighs only 5.4 pounds with a wingspan of 16-1/2 feet.

“This is the first time that an airplane without moving parts has flown,” said MIT aerospace engineer Steven Barrett, who drew inspiration from fictional shuttlecraft from “Star Trek.”

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