Flying Only with the Heat of the Sun

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist.php#...

His values are more in line with history, particularly before the industrial revolution. He finds out and shares how people did things without burning fossil fuels that we can learn from.

The site has changed my life. One example: his articles on how power grids become insecure and expensive with higher uptimes, making using just renewables harder https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/12/keeping-some-of-the-..., combined with an article on fermentation in Vietnam https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2017/02/vietnams-low-tech-fe... led me to try unplugging my fridge. Using my windowsill for cold and fermenting, my first try two winters ago, I made it three months. My next try, last winter, I started earlier and made it 6.5 months. My food was as delicious as ever and my electric charges dropped to under $2.00 per month. More importantly, I live more resiliently. If more people lived this way, large parts of the country could go with just renewables, barely any batteries, no peaker plants, no nuclear, more health, longevity, prosperity, stability, energy security.

With that little energy use, I'm going to try taking my apartment off the electric grid for a few months this winter. That's living in Manhattan. I'll also start earlier as I developed more skills to store and ferment without a fridge, so starting in October or maybe September, I figure I can go 8 or 9 months without a fridge -- that is, living resiliently.

To clarify, my power reduction is a side point. Divided by 7.9 billion it's a rounding error. It's the value shift from dependence to independence, from relying on burning fossil fuels to learning from my neighbors, family, and ancestors. The cause of our environmental problems isn't CO2 and plastics. They result from our behaviors, which result from our culture. He comes from a culture that doesn't cause these problems, or at least orders of magnitude less.

Such solutions are practical, affordable, immediately doable and most available to those with the least resources. His philosophy focuses on improving human life, community, and Earth's ability to sustain life.

It's much quieter than small general aviation aircraft so you can talk to the pilot without a headset, the only noise being the air flowing around the plane.

The whole plane is also usually much lighter and has better visibility, not to mention being very graceful. At least for me the experience felt much more direct and elegant.

And the experience of being powered pretty much directly by nature and the pilots skill in finding the invisible rising thermals is priceless! Its the perfect metagame, the pilot uses their extensive meteorogical experience to guess where the thermals are and flies there. If the guess was right you are rewarded by the sweet sweet positive altitude value on the variometer. If the guess was wrong the altitude budget is spent and you have to land and try again.

And lastly, it all feels so safe! Like, really - the aircraft has no engine that can fail and is pretty much built to land on any reasonably flat field. And the pilot is trained to always look for a landing area in case they don't find thermals and have to land early.

And what happens if a glider lands in a field ? Gliders have detachable wings so that they can be loaded on trailer dispatched from the airfield. In favorable conditions sometimes a tow aircraft can be dispatched to land near the glider on the same field and tow it aloft again.

Really, gliders are so much different than "normal" aircraft yet so fascinating! :)

What about a lifting body shape, like a manta ray?

Could you flap its wings to provide thrust? Like this, but matte black:

https://youtu.be/c3-wIICjAhE

Though, you can't have the wings collapse just because you entered shade... How do we get the best of both worlds? Maybe long rigid sailplane wings extending from a larger blimplike body?

You'd need to do something to maintain an aerodynamic shape for the balloon even when it was "collapsed". It'd be nice if that could happen passively (say, just using an elastic material), but that might "fight" inflation too much; maybe active control would be needed, say of some struts or cables internal to the balloon.

With some effort I feel a new recreational vehicle may be possible. Probably you'd want it to be classified as an ultralight, so anyone could fly it.

Not an easy design challenge though.

Maybe a solar powered sailplane with an electric prop would be simpler.

I'd still love to see a more elegant, lower-tech approach though.

Actually: What about pedal power?

https://ecofriend.com/eco-tech-pedal-your-way-to-the-skies-w...

Hm. Now we have three ideas to unify: Gliding, solar-thermal lighter-than-air, and human power.

Hm.

Edit: tidal power would also seem to fall into that bucket because it comes from the gravitational forces of the solar system.