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Is the viscosity of ionized air lower than air?

My understanding is that the ionized air is used in tandem with electric field to accelerate plain air (non-ionized) by collision/friction. In other words, the ionized air is being used as a gaseous propeller.

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I thought about doing this when I was playing with lifters a couple decades ago. The idea was that you could ionize the boundary layer, to make it somewhat "self repulsive", to thin it, to try to reduce the skin friction drag [1].

I remember doing some napkin math, and the added weight/power would be a net loss.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_friction_drag

I believe people have found ways to reduce drag with lasers and microwaves so you might be on to something.

Accelerating the ‘plain air’ isn’t really necessary to the propulsion. Once you’ve accelerated the ions you’ve already accomplished a momentum transfer - if those ions then go and share that momentum with some non ionized air molecules that’s their own business.

I guess maybe the non ionized air acts to keep the ions around between the two charged grids for longer, which means that for each ion you create you can maybe exploit its attractive/repulsive force for longer?

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