When I read that they were used in mines, I thought Garry meant the type that
sink ships, and immediately thought of blaniks....
JR
----- Original Message -----
From: DMcD
To: Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia.
Sent: Friday, December 19, 2008 7:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] For enquiring minds
I recently read some stuff about compressed air engines (on the internet,
where else!). They have been around for some time and were, for example, used
in mines because they were safer than steam or early internal combustion
engines. There has been a recent surge of interest in using such engines in
vehicles because they have no emissions, can be efficient and that modern
materials, eg carbon fibre, can greatly reduce the weight of air tanks. This
excludes the emissions from power stations generating electricity which drives
the compressors needed to "refuel" the engine.
It might be worth looking at something like a hybrid rocket. These have been
made with fuels from acrylic, rubber and even cardboard and an oxidiser such
gaseous oxygen. This is what the Virgin rocket used to get into low space or
whatever you want to call it. There's a lot of stuff like this on the internet
too. Rocket powered skateboards etc.
With the acrylic version, you have a perspex tube with a bit of steel wool
inside. At one end is the oxygen pipe and the other end is the nozzle. When the
oxygen flow is turned on, the steel wool ignites the perspex and wango-bango,
JATO on a glider. Turn off the oxy and the fire goes out. Hopefully.
It is possible that older gliders could be converted this way in to self
launches. The resin would probably be a reasonable substitute for rubber or
acrylic and the glider would become a self consuming way of getting a low cost
self launch and getting rid of redundant gliders. I'm working on the concept
for Blaniks...
DMcD
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