I'm am trying to see if electricity can be transferred efficiently to a battery free E-fan plane. How will wind sheer effect the transfer of electrons through thin air using a laser filamentation electrical discharge method at different wind speeds of orbital speeds and higher? Could enough wind bend a constant discharge in the bottom picture if the laser and electricity stayed constant?
E-plane
Laser induced electrical discharge.
My impression is that the laser beam creates a long thin cylindrical zone inside which the atoms are ionized, allowing electrical discharges along the cylinder - along the interior of that cylindrical zone - to happen.
So it must depend on how fast those discharges are. Can they get to the other side - the end of the cylinder, the E-Fan that you want to power - before the air flow of the wind carries the ionized atoms out of the cylindrical zone of ionization created by the laser beam, and into an environment where they will quickly capture free electrons and become neutral and non-conducting again.
I owe the realization that it's just a competition between speed of the discharge electrons along the beam, and speed of the air flow through the beam, to this answer on why a candle in the wind goes out, when it talks about the speed of the "flame front".
