OK, but don't Indy, CART and F-1 cars have ground effects? And aren't they
turning corners all the time and some at very high speeds?
Ken Walkey may be right with his statement, but I still fail to understand
why?
How many Streamlines have run on the salt with ground effects? Did they all
fly? How many without ground effects have flown?
John Beckett, LSR #79
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Dincau" <jdincau@qnet.com>
To: "Dan Warner" <dwarner@electrorent.com>; <land-speed@autox.team.net>
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2000 10:30 PM
Subject: Re: Flying Streamliners
> Hi Dan;
> Here is my input. In 1990 I talked my partners Ken Logan and Jerry
> Jones into trying ground effects for traction instead of lead. We took
all
> the lead out (about 800 lbs. I think) and I built skirts for the sides.
With
> the slope on the underside of the car and tapering up from 36 in wide at
the
> firewall to 40 inches wide at the back end the aero guys at Lockheed
> thought the resulting diffuser would produce about 1200 pounds of
downforce.
> First run Jerry hits a wet spot at about 220 an it swaps ends so fast he
> can't catch it. The car went around 5 times, it turns out that the ground
> effects worked just great till the car got a little sideways and the
airflow
> through the tunnel stalled.
> Wings and tunnels add traction with a drag penalty and that penalty
> increases with the square of the speed. Lead adds traction with an
> acceleration penalty but it is constant and doesn't go away when the
airflow
> is less than ideal. If I were building a streamliner it would be front
> engined, front wheel drive to get the maximum weight on the drive wheels.
> Aero managed downforce is neat if you have to turn and accelerate at the
> same time, we don't.
>
> Jim in Palmdale, who's rocket scientist reputation was enhanced by the
above
> incident.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Dan Warner <dwarner@electrorent.com>
> To: <land-speed@autox.team.net>
> Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2000 10:33 AM
> Subject: Flying Streamliners
>
>
> > Interesting conversation concerning streamliners. Ken Walky stated that
> > there had never been a ground effects streamliner that did not fly.
> > Accumulated wisdom could not refute Ken's theory.
> >
> > We had to define ground effects as a lifting surface on top of the car
> > and/or tunnels or some such device under the car(non-flat bottom).
> >
> > Any comments?
> >
> > Dan (looking for air) Warner
> >
>
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