THE maiden flight of a paper aeroplane might not seem like much of a technological achievement, but for a team of Japanese researchers it could herald the dawn of a new way of flying: laser propulsion.
The paper plane in question is no ordinary piece of origami. Attached to its tail is a lightweight propulsion system that uses energy from a ground-based laser to propel the aircraft forward.
If the technique, called laser ablation, is scaled up to full-sized planes it should provide enough thrust to accelerate a 10-tonne plane to supersonic speeds, say its developers. They propose using it…
