Future of Maglev in the US Military

The Hippy of Death writes "An article at The Weekly Standard discusses the current maglev research being funded by the US military. From the article: 'But what if you could drastically reduce the amount of noise a ship makes directly at the source? ...Vibration & Sound Solutions Limited suggested placing mag-lev sensors at the source of the electromagnetic fields, such as motors. The idea was to actually levitate the machinery with an array of electromagnets while using a small amount of power.'"

Re:Submitter should RTFA

[funkcicle]

"Then the company is trying to expand by putting this into other vehicles like humvees and helicopters. (why in a helicopter?)"

American military choppers don't exactly have a reputation for staying in the air...

Re:Not a solution at all

[LordSnooty]

It's time we started working towards peace rather than war.

Nice idea, but someone's gotta play with all that shiny new machinery from Lockheed Martin.

Re:Why in a Helicopter?

[Aero]

When I was in school, I had an aerodynamics prof that was trying to make a point about the serious mechanical and material issues that helicopters have because of vibration. It's a real problem, and this system would help a lot, even if a crash landing isn't involved (as TFA mentions).

However, since his exact words were "Helicopters are flying vibrators", the point was largely lost on us at the time, and it took several minutes for the lecture hall to calm down enough for him to continue...