if magnets can hover over each other why cant we make an air craft that float on the magnet fields?

Answer 1

It has been done and is being used to some degree. There are passenger trains or coaches if you want to use that idea. They run on magnetic rails and are suspended above the track. This is about as close to what you are asking as it will ever bee. The further between the two forces the stronger the force has to be. The limit is very soon reached. It does take two sources of force so the one on the ground either has travel with the one above or the one above has to go where the force on the ground is. Not practical for air travel at all. There may in the future be a way to do this but very unlikely. No, UFOs are optical illusions and do not exist as real space ships. There are no little green men from Mars coming to get you.

Answer 2

The magnetic attraction breaks down over distance between the magnets. To fly at high speeds you need to get further away from earths surface otherwise the craft becomes overstressed and tears apart. So assuming normal aviation altitudes remain about the same you would need a HUGE magnet to hold a plane at 30,000ft, not only that but the magnet would have to be under the plane the entire trip....Transatlantic and pacific flights could become very interesting. The area needed for these magnets would be huge and considering most major airports are near large cities almost the entire population would have to leave probably. Getting to the airport would be another thing your car would have to be quite some ways away or it would be attracted to the magnet or flung into the sky.

Trains and maybe even cars could make use of magnetic fields, planes not so much.

Answer 3

That is a really good question - and in theory, it sounds possible. However, in order to accomplish this, the magnetic fields would have to be EXTREMELY strong as well as opposing. Remember, if the distance between the magnets is increased by a factor of 4, the magnetic field strength is decreased by a factor of 16. That means the field strength would have to be constantly changing as the plane gained altitude - at any reasonably high altitude, the magnetic repulsion would have to be in the unheard of realm of strength - and, even if this were possible (it isn't) it would surely destroy all wireless communication on the surface as it flew over and possibly cause many other unintended consequences.

Answer 4

The aircraft would not be impossible to make. It would be restricted to flying only where a strong magnetic field existed though. It has already been done maglev trains are really floating just a little above a track of magnets.

Answer 5

I love your question. Years ago, I asked why we dont make trains and train tracks that use the same polar charge for the track and for the part of the train that sits on the track. That way, there would be no friction which would allow the train to reach very high speeds without a massive fuel consumption.
Imagine; a train hovering over the tracks with some sort of mechanism keeping it stablilized and in place. The minute amount of force it would take to move that train would be unimaginable. An adult male might be able to push the train.

Answer 6

they've made a high speed train that runs on magnets, I dont know that a magnetic field could go far enough to keep a plane in the air without disturbing every electrical thing within the range

Answer 7

Magnetic induction motors use that principle, among others, to produce enormous accelerations, with the craft (usually a train of some sort) elevated above the track. The accelerations are so large they cannot be used in ordinary transportation and are used mainly in amusement-park rides.

Answer 8

First off, they would get going really really fast, but it would be pretty hard to stop them since there'd be basically no friction so they'd be able to go that same high speed forever and it would be dangerous.
Second, everything would be strictly confined to where there were such magnetic feilds and no one likes that idea.
Third, it would cost so much money to make these crafts and set up the feilds.
Finally these would have to be electro-magnets, and to keep that up would use so much energy it's not even funny.

Answer 9

We may not have planes that work like this ,but we do have electric trains that use the attraction and repulsion of magnetic fields. It's called maglev, which stands for magnetic levitation.

Answer 10

we can and have.

but that airplane can only "fly" close to the magnets. The repulsive forces between the magnets in the plane and the magnets on the ground will decrease by the square of the distance between them should they move apart.