There is a difference between stalling due to high angles of attack, and having too much drag from cross-sectional resistance on an unstalled wing to be able to lift. The practical outcome is the same however, not enough lift to overcome the weight.
Or not enough airspeed, which is the most common stall condition real pilots face (caused by a variety of scenarios such as too much altitude, runway approach too slow, etc).
Hey guys, I worked on this program as an intern in my senior year of college (2012-2013). There are 5 units of the mini-PW's out right now for testing, and I've built all of them. I can answer any questions you might have and I'll do my best to explain the aerodynamics behind it if anyone is interested!
The title is a bit sensationalist - An airfoil that will never stall, no matter the angle of attack. They did CFD simulations that shows their wing not stalling at extreme angles of attack (not at any angle).
Also, they are talking about a wing. An airfoil is a wing section not the actual wing.
An airfoil describes the stall characteristics of the wing.
Camber, chord, edges, angle of attack .. these are all described by the airfoil and are key to flight control, including stall handling. How an airfoil gets itself out of the stall state is of great interest to designers.
Airfoils which utilize the Magnus effect (as in this case) do have different stall characteristics. Its not incorrect to refer to the airfoil in that context.. a bit like calling a soccer ball not just a sphere but also a wing, too, which in fact it is to most airfoil designers .. ;)
Very interesting flight mechanics are possible when designers try to utilize this effect, and its exciting to see this little-known technology come to the forefront as more and more folks enter the 'drone-fleets are the new network' age ..
Absolutely not. To glide well, you need big ol' wings. There's a concept called aspect-ratio, which is basically the relationship between the wingspan (left to right) and wing chord (front to back). High AR = better for gliding. Conversely, and in the case of the mini-PW, when you have virtually no wingspan, you aren't going to glide very far. We affectionatly referred to power loss as "brick mode".
Well ideally we wouldn't lose power to begin with but yes. The PW is essentially a powered wing to begin with, so losing power leaves you with just a wing. The real design benefit here is that with the powered wing, you can make the win extra thick. And I can tell you, that internal space is huge. Plenty of room for any kind of payload.
I'll delete it in a couple of days once this drops off HN.