2003 Volume 74 Issue 3 Pages 167-172
The jet-stream blowing over Japan in the high altitude of about 10 km is used to float a platform with a wing tethered with cables. The platform is also lift-ed and held in the altitude with two roters buried in wings. The platform may carry a wind power generator of about 1000 kw, or a transmitter for telecommunication or broadcasting covering a broad area of the ground, and also an environmental watcher by observation of the atmosphere, ground vegetation, traffic, and others. Other applications of the tethered floating platform are suggested for the prevention of lightning discharge and many others like monitoring, survey, and planting of seeds. The characteristics of the platform are described as a new type of useful and economical facility in comparison with the facilities on the ground, artificial satellites in space, and the airship as a stratospheric plat-form projected in Japan and U.S..
