Jet + ion lifting hovering jet will it work?

[phoenixman76]

ok, I am not a physics student, engineer, or mathematician, but i have an idea i need to know will work or not. we've all undoubtedly seen star wars ep 1 with the podracer race...floating engines. would an alternator connected to a turbojet produce enough voltage to power an ion lifter? are there any ion lifters powerful enough to lift a jet engine?

 

[kach22i]

Do you know anything about ION loudspeakers?

Link:
http://www.ee.vill.edu/ion/p12.html

The ion speaker takes advantage of the corona discharge effect to produce sound.

If you can move air to generate sound, then why not lift?

You could be on to something.

 

[russ_watters]

Deep Space One used ion propulsion. It used solar panels to generate about enough thrust to lift a piece of paper. It take a lot of power to generate thrust that way. Too much for it to be viable for a VTOL aircraft.

Here's the biggest we currently have: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/features/nep_prometheus.html

 

[LURCH]

Besides, if you've already got a jet engine, you could divert the thrust from that to be self-levitating, and you'd get a lot more power from them!