RE: Race bike Stability and Safety

["Waldron, James" <James.Waldron@CWUSA.COM>]

Skip,

Yeah.  The CG has always seemed pretty easy (especially since I found that
the state department of weights and measures will loan me a certified scale
good up to 2000lbs).  It was always trying to calculate/figure our the CP.
This web site suggests an interesting technique of projecting the profile of
the object onto a sheet of paper (a scale model in this case I think),
cutting out the profile, and then finding where the center of balance of the
paper is - which they claim is the CP! (?) (Sounds too easy.)

Perhaps you or the good Dr. Mayf could comment further?

Thanks,
Jim.

-----Original Message-----
From: Higginbotham Land Speed Racing [mailto:saltrat@pro-blend.com]
Sent: Monday, September 09, 2002 3:43 PM
To: Waldron, James; land-speed@autox.team.net
Subject: RE: Race bike Stability and Safety


Don't forget that the rocket is upright and a car/bike is horizontal. And
it will work if you weigh the vehicle and locate the CG having already
known the CP.
Skip

------------------

>"You can increase the stability by lowering the center of pressure
(increase
>the fin area) or by raising the center of gravity (add weight to the
nose.)"
>
>from  http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/rktstab.html
>
>Thanks,
>Jim.