Comment by bGatti on October 18, 2010 at 11:57am

Not the first by any stretch; but way cool none the less.
Of a piece with Google "akimo (sp?)" group doing high altitude kites.

Comment by Joe Bloeski on October 18, 2010 at 5:16pm

Gotta think the chance of an aircraft accidentally flying into one of these moving cables is too high to allow this to be made. Also the risk of a cable breaking and a large frame drifting down wind and landing on house/school/hospital etc.. is too high for this ever to be approved. Design is just too unsafe to be allowed, not to mention the noise many areas that have approved wind turbines are now trying to get them removed as local residents can't take the constant noise created. Just not going to happen.

Comment by MarcS on October 19, 2010 at 12:27am

Joe, I think the main problem is not noise, they state they want to fly in high altitude high wind layers...
The Problem with the cables could be handled, just declare a no fly zone or use an old one (unused military place). If the wire is cut anyway, the "plane" would have enough autonomy to land...

In my opinion the show stopper will be reliability! Just imagine how complex the system is and that it will have to fly for months without maintenance (offshore wind turbines are supposed to run two years without).
And the loads for the structure will be high. As I understand it, it´s a kind of dynamic soaring (DS)? Just search what the loads are for DS RC planes. It´s over 100g.
So, it´s an intersting idea, but in the conclusion I agree, unrealistic..
Somewhere I saw a concept of obotically controlled kites to produce wind energy, which sound much more doable.

Comment by Andrew Dunlop on October 19, 2010 at 4:13am

@MarcS, you might have been thinking of Makani Power.

Cheers,
Andrew.

Comment by Michael Zaffuto on October 19, 2010 at 5:12am

The cool thing is that it is a "tethered" kite..no regulations..no height or size or weight restrictions...for now.

Comment by MarcS on October 19, 2010 at 6:32am

Hi Andrew,

did not know this one, cool concept, too, but also dependant on "intelligence" in the plane.
I was talking about the kite based concepts where the control and power generation is ground based:
Kite Wind Power

Comment by bGatti on October 19, 2010 at 12:36pm

@MarcS

see the problem with ground based kite energy is that the strings must then transfer the power - any serious power would require substantial strings, and then the weight become an issue - only exacerbated as you get higher. Electric wires are the better way to move energy, and this gets back to oops' there goes a generator. I would agree that autonomy might overcome this risk, and redundancy might produce a device that can recover itself meaningfully - we are as a species willing to accept huge risks if the reward is energy.

Moderator Comment by Gary Mortimer on October 19, 2010 at 2:51pm

@ bGatti sadly ain't that the truth we are as a species willing to accept huge risks if the reward is energy. Well said.

Comment by Joe Bloeski on October 19, 2010 at 2:59pm

Like I said "accidentally" there is a constant "no fly zone" over DC (for national security) but military jets are scrambled when a private plane enters DC air space quite regularly. Some wind plant in the mid west is even more likely to have unintended visitors who claim to not know about the "no fly" regulations.

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