Omni-Directional propulsion (ODP)

[jakethesnake]

Omni-Directional propulsion Systems (ODPS)<br /><br />APRLabs was granted the license rights to patent 20060230847 developed by propulsion designer Chris B. Hewatt.<br /><br />Some of the things claimed by APRLabs! (Link given below)<br /><br />Imagine having a space vehicle that can create thrust for years instead of minutes like our current rocket technology. We would have a vehicle that “in time” could reach the maximum known velocity and put to test the theories about space and time and how they come together.<br /><br />USES OF OMNI-DIRECTIONAL PROPULSION<br />Imagine a boat on the water without the propeller down in the water taking up 30 percent of the boat’s power just to overcome the drag of the propeller forcing its way through the water. <br /><br />Imagine an airplane taking off from a runway with no propellers or jet engines forcing the air through the fans to create forward movement. <br /><br />Imagine a submarine moving through the water with no propellers and running virtually silent through the ocean. <br /><br />Imagine a helicopter that takes off in a crowd of people but has no rotors and not a single hair goes out of place of anyone standing around.<br /><br />Link to A brief understanding of the technology, Technical Drawing and Patent Description and Claims:<br /><br />http://www.aprlabs.com/descrip.htm<br /><br />Any and all comment welcome if not desired as to the validity of this technology! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong></strong> </div>

 

[kyle_baron]

I highly doubt that it could overcome the gravity on earth. In space maybe, over a lengthly period of time. Also, it's not clear where the people would be located, so that they're not spinning and creating G-forces that would kill them. In otherwords, it's too crude right now, with too many unanswered questions, in order to draw any conclusions. But it is interesting. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="4"><strong></strong></font></p> </div>

 

[jakethesnake]

I think you’re probably right although they do have a working prototype and this technology does shows promise if only in space. I do find it somewhat unbelievable that a gyro would have the ability to levitate and overcome the Earth’s gravity, not to mention the mechanical strain on the device needed to achieve this feat! Also the energy needed to power such a machine would have to be phenomenal! I do recall a similar claim about 6 months ago that theorized that a larger spinning superconductor would be able to deify the Earth’s gravity but the energy needed would be prohibitive. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong></strong> </div>

 

[qso1]

One has to view this with some skepticism while at the same time hoping that a real breakthrough may be at hand.<br /><br />At this point the skeptic in me asks the question...where is this lab? Who is Chris B. Hewatt? Who is sponsoring the research and is there scientific peer review?<br /><br />The technical .pdf file contains drawings of various shapes with no explanation as to what they are. Just numbers that suggest various angles. Smacks of techno B.S. to me. And just because a patent has been awarded by no means does it mean the device actually works.<br /><br />Having said that, all that can be done is to monitor the progress of this website just as I have monitored the Bezos Blue Origins site which has produced a working prototype of a vehicle and video taped the first test. I have also seen other websites promising new space technologies dissappear over the years and more of those type of sites than actual progressing sites. Especially those claiming to have exotic devices. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[jakethesnake]

I have found other articles such as this one http://press.arrivenet.com/travel/article.php/899116.html that suggest a working prototype which is encouraging although, you are right in that you can get a patent on just about anything which doesn’t mean its useful, marketable or, not to mention feasibly reliable. I have a patent and have received quite an education in the dilutions of grandeur and feasibility departments! <img src="/images/icons/blush.gif" /><br /><br />I searched for this Chris B. Hewatt guy and did find that he has another patent (link below) and probably has more. The interesting thing is that his other patent also involves gyroscopes. I could find nothing else about him.<br /><br />The two basic articles that I have found refers to Aries Propulsion Research Labs as being one of the leaders in propulsion systems engineering but, aside from their limited website and these articles I could find little else about them.<br /><br />I thing at this point you are also right in that it would be great if something like this came into fruition but most likely this will fade away into the ether as they almost always do! <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /><br /><br />Some of the comments the other version of this same report article:<br /><br /><font color="orange"> “Preliminary tests of this propulsion design have produced better than expected TPR results and should allow direct vertical ascents without the aid of a winged fuselage. Within the next 12 months APR Labs will begin testing its design on watercraft and shortly thereafter begin unmanned ascent testing.”<br /><br />“Aries Propulsion Research Labs (APR Labs) is one of today's leaders in propulsion systems engineering. Specializing in the design and testing of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) gas generators, catalyst beds, nozzle designs, and H2O2 distillation methods.”<br /><br />“APR Labs has been working to create new propulsion system</font> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong></strong> </div>

 

[vandivx]

this is a FRAUD<br /><br />this contraption won't move anywhere but only around its center of mass point<br /><br />take it from one who investigated gyroscopic motion in detail from physical point of view (as opposed to mathematical description of it)<br /><br />gyroscopic motion is poorly understood by physicicsts never mind amateur enthousiasts who either are deluded by it or simply want to put one over on their audience<br /><br />though really you don't have to understand gyroscopic phenomenon in order to tell that you can't generate net motion (motion of the point of center of mass) in space without some sort of ejecting of matter/energy (discarding it in effect) because ordinary classical mechanics tells you that and gyroscopes are just mechanical devices that don't violate classical mechanics in any way<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

Those pesky Newtonian laws of motion again....darn!! <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[vandivx]

yeah, good way of putting it <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />I could go into the bother of elucidating precession and nutation motion here and how it keeps one end of the axle of a spinning wheel suspended midair apparently against all intuition and physical laws but I am sure people would find that boring and likely wouldn't follow the explanation too far before getting lost in it, that was the reason too why I never went public with it <br /><br />BTW even Feynman didn't understand what makes gyroscope tick so people shouldn't feel bad if they find it puzzling<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jakethesnake]

Thanks for your input and although I have a strong mechanical background the physics involved here keeps me looking at this from a layman’s point view and I believe your right on all counts. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong></strong> </div>

 

[jakethesnake]

Hey, look at that I just became a <font color="orange">"rock"!</font><img src="/images/icons/cool.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong></strong> </div>

 

[Mee_n_Mac]

I'm still not sure I've got the right mental picture of what's being described on the site. Sounds to me like the "inventor" has a spining gyro supported on 1 end just like the typical bicycle wheel demonstration. It precesses around the center support (string in the video) because given gravity and being supported on only 1 end, it "sees" a torque. Now back to the ODP, at some point you grab the rotating axis of the gyro and this is supposed to result in translational movement ? If you do this what I think will happen is that some angular momentum will be transferred to you. If sufficient you'll rotate your feet up and your head down into the ground. Sounds like a fun experiment to try ! Mebbe we could get Mr Hewatt to demonstrate it for us. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />If on the other hand you support the spinning, rotating gyro with a wheel (in lieu of the string in the video) I'd think the angular momentum transferred to that wheel would result in motion. How this is any better than driving the wheel with a motor is beyond my ken. Certainly it's not omni-directional as implied in the description.<br /><br /> So what happens to the spinning gyro when you grab it (per the sites example) ? Kinda depends on whether your feet leave the ground or not. With no support but now with gravity pulling it down and gravity pulling you down at the same rate I'd think it would stop precessing because there's no net torque. Maybe vanDivX can correct or help me here. <br /><br />In the case where the gyro is supported, like in my wheel case above, you'd get some wild combination of gyro precession from the gyro and wheel and some translation. I have no idea what this would look like. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>-----------------------------------------------------</p><p><font color="#ff0000">Ask not what your Forum Software can do do on you,</font></p><p><font color="#ff0000">Ask it to, please for the love of all that's Holy, <strong>STOP</strong> !</font></p> </div>

 

[qso1]

My hats off to you for healthy skepticism and doing some research.<br /><br />For me, one of the things I look for is the B.S. factor. Just what are TPR results. That line appears thrown in to make it sound like they are working on something technical while not explaining what the technical is. In more conventional research, acronyms are generally explained as to what they at least stand for. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[vandivx]

I understand the principle as he explains it that he is simply holding some stick in hand horizontally extended from his body and turns around on his feet and the stick's farther end is therefore traveling at some speed (same as if you held a ball at the end of string and turned around to keep the string tought and the ball flying around you)<br /><br />his point is that the stick is rigid (as opposed to string) and if you gave the stick a spin suddenly as you turn around with it - best done if the stick had some sort of flywheel in the middle of it which you started spinning suddenly while you were turning on your feet - it would act so as to prevent you turning and would shift you from where you stand, if you held onto the stick (which is true) and he goes on to the idea that you could travel that way even in outer space without the usual rocket propulsion which is pattently false as that would never shift the center of mass of the whole assembly - your body plus the stick (with the flywheel if it had one)<br /><br />his idea is to have something like that bicycle wheel you mention but with much longer rigid axle and the wheel consisting of some more compact flywheel that would by motorized to allow you to spin it up and stop it periodically and have the whole assemblage rotating and when it would be in some desired orientation (which would happen periodically every turn) you would spin up the flywheel briefly with the result that some complicated tumbling sort of motion would ensue and his idea is that repeatedly spining up the flywheel at each turn of the pole would keep shifting the center of mass of the whole assemblage in some direction and thus result in net motion in a given direction (but he wouldn't get going anywhere, same as when astronaut flails his limbs about him, he can never get going, i.e., shift his center of mass anywhere)<br /><br />the omnidirectionality of motion means he can spin up the gyro when the pole is oriented in any direction and thus cho <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[vandivx]

"With no support but now with gravity pulling it down and gravity pulling you down at the same rate I'd think it would stop precessing because there's no net torque. Maybe vanDivX can correct or help me here."<br /><br />you are quite correct, you need to have torque on the axle for the precession to happen, without that there is no precession (of course freely falling gyro in gravitation field would continue the turning 'precessing' motion if you briefly applied some torque to its axle and then let go of it but it really would not be 'precessing' motion anymore, just turning motion that would be kept because of the conserved angular momentum and I say 'turning motion' because it wouldn't be the proper precessing motion, that is motion around the one tip of the axle but rather some more complicated turning/tumbling motion<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jakethesnake]

Thanks and I also sent APRLabs an e-mail asking for their comments and although they are probably swamped with inquiries you never know so, let’s see what happens…<img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /><br /><br />The e-mail I sent APRLabs:<br /><br /><font color="orange">To Whom It May Concern:<br /><br />My name is Wayne Martin and like many others that are probably contacting your company I am very interested in your Omni-Directional propulsion Systems (ODPS).<br />So much so I started an Internet Posting on Space.com Discussion board “Space Science & Astronomy” called of course “Omni-Directional propulsion (ODP)” (Link Below) and my handle that I am posting with is “JakeTheSnake”.<br /><br />I would very much appreciate someone to educate this discussion of how this technology is possible sense the principle of conservation of momentum states that the total amount of momentum of all the things in the universe will never change. One of the consequences of this is that the centre of mass of any system of objects will always continue with the same velocity unless acted on by a force outside the system. </font><br /><br />http://uplink.space.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=sciastro&Number=643731&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong></strong> </div>

 

[qso1]

Sounds good. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[jakethesnake]

Guess what? Chris Hewatt himself has contacted me and I am waiting for his approval to post what he has said to me.<br /><br />He has viewed this post and understands and has addressed the skepticism that has been shown here!<br /><br />I think I can say a few things that he has told me which by the way goes way beyond any article that I have read. I will also say that I believe at this point that he is on to something that is equivalent to what the Write brothers did at Kitty Hawk or what Von Braun did to get us to the Moon!<br /><br />Basically Chris Hewatt says that they are no longer in the test stages and actually have a working propulsion system.<br /><br />He also said that in the articles that were written about ODP there was a typo which was “TPR” and was supposed to be TWR “thrust weight ratio” and said that the “working model gains velocity at incredible rates”!!!<br /><br />Also this working propulsion system does not work like everyone is thinking and gives a better idea of how it does work.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong></strong> </div>

 

[jakethesnake]

Chris Hewatt says that they will be providing a video of it in action sometime this year; also he says he is beyond the prototyping stage and it works very well so, I guess we will see.<br /><br />What would you say if it works???<img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong></strong> </div>

 

[vandivx]

what would you say if pigs would fly?<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jakethesnake]

That you strapped something to their ass but you wouldn't do that would you??? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong></strong> </div>

 

[vandivx]

why does your forum nick remaind me so of snake oil salesmen<br /><br />and yeah, hitch that gyro to a pair of spacefaring buffalos and it will make fine progress TBS<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jakethesnake]

This is everything Chris Hewatt has sent me.<br /><br />Wayne, I had a few moments and was able to read through the posts on the site you listed. It is completely understandable to take something with complete skepticism that claims to create a new form of movement. My time only allows me to correspond on ODP on a limited basis so I think the best way to do this is to answer some questions asked on the forum in this email and if you choose you can append them to one of your posts. The company that is funding the research is called Data Recovery Link out of Centennial Colorado. I am the technology designer for the company. Yes I am very intrigued by gyros. They have a unique property of applying force to media without requiring stabilization themselves. I do understand the physics; however, I have never been interested in that part of how a gyro works only how that property can be applied to applications. TPR was a typo in the article and was supposed to be TWR or “thrust weight ratio”. I have found even my own descriptions to be lacking in just how to articulate the workings of ODP. The idea was seven years in the making before the patent was published. We had a working prototype prior to patent. In many cases scientists will theorize why something will work and create a prototype. When the prototype works completely different than expected the scientists reverse engineer the idea and determine why it works. That is how we created ODP. We created the design and once we achieved movement we figured out why. This is not something that rotates, vibrates, and small measurements of movement are detected. The working model gains velocity at incredible rates. We are no longer in the test stages. We are currently working on the vehicle to house the propulsion system. To better understand the idea it is best to not think about gyros or precession. That is how all previous patents operate (in theory). The force that momentarily changes the center of rotati <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong></strong> </div>

 

[kyle_baron]

ROFL! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="4"><strong></strong></font></p> </div>

 

[kyle_baron]

His statement says nothing. I wouldn't hold my breath for the video either. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="4"><strong></strong></font></p> </div>

 

[jakethesnake]

Such shallow mindedness lends itself to nowhere “ME” and no snake oil just a gut feeling! Plus I know a little more than I’m letting on but, not to worry keep it coming, I find it very interesting!!! Make sure both feet are in before your next comment please! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong></strong> </div>