Highplains, I can relate to your example about the coal cars on the train pulling easier when they had coal in them. Many years ago, hauling grain to Toledo, we had a 38' trailer, behind a 318 Detroit powered Astro. When we got the trailer unloaded, the tarp blew off, so my brother and I just rolled it up and put it inside of the trailer. With a 20 ton load of grain on, the Astro would pull the load in 13th gear at 60mph, but on the return trip, with the trailer untarped, 55 was all she could muster in 12th. From then on we never pulled a trailer with out the tarp on, loaded or empty.

Just another example, of what wind drag can do.

Dale

Thats a big bucket. I saw this one on mythbusters to the trailer gets laminar flow in to it and acts like a air brake.

Include the engines from the F14 -yup it works!
Aero rule 1- enough power fixes all other deficiencies-

Exactly!

"Aero rule 1- enough power fixes all other deficiencies"

Aero rule ?- MINIMUM DEFICIENCES require less power and allow the best economy of energy to fly a load from point A to point B in the same time.

Then, sailplane designers and pilots arrived to the concept of best Lift/Drag ratio, because the power of their machines is limited to what gravity can offer.

After that, golf ball designers and players engineered dimples in order to achieve MINIMUM DEFICIENCIES during the free flight of the balls, because the power of those balls is limited to what the muscles of the players can offer.

DEFICIENCIES: Anything that perturbates the molecules of air for anything else than what WE NEED them to do for us in a particular instant.

as a full scale pilot, I know of several Cessna 172 owners who had their planes caught in a hailstorm which dimpled the wing. Both planes gained 5 mph top end due to the dimples. There is no reason this would not give a car better mileage.

We used to leave our race cars out in the weather so that the rusting would lighten them.
The performance improve 3.7 %

Pedal cars lose a lot of weight from rust.

I would imagine that your scratch built car was a foamy? right?

Lets all go out and punch dimples in our cars to test this. Why do they pull old cars of the road then with dents in them? Would they not be the best for saving gas all around? Of course you could go with the conspiracy theory on the gas companies wanting to sell more gas to you. Can't do that if you have streamlined cars

No - But my small block Chev powered A100 Healey only weighed 2100 lbs .
(da Rock- the attached pic is an A100 -a lot nicer than mine -)

Nice Healey. I tried to race a small sedan that was just over 1300lbs dry. So I really do understand the value of light weight.

Yo Hugger-4641, Where did you come up with that info. Subs with dimples. You got pictures you can post to that effect?

My 2001 Audi A2 1.2 TDI 3L transports four persons quite comfortably at an average fuel consumption of 78 mpg. When on the highway the consumption drops to 87 mpg.

???

correct me if I'm wrong but without Gravity there would be no drag or lift!! unless induced

iflircaircraft,

Lift and drag are independent of gravity. In the absence of gravity, an airplane could still fly tight turns (loops). The force responsible would be lift. For a given thrust, the aircraft would still achieve a finite velocity, at which the thrust would be equaled by the drag.

banktoturn

Of course, with no gravity, what would you need lift for?

Surprised that point was missed also- no gravity= no atmosphere.
I wonder which airfoil works best wif no gravity?

What makes you think it was missed?

1st things 1st.

Of course, I'm surprised you didn't say that the only models that could possibly fly in zero gravity would be the lightest ones.

Think about it.......

Light AND WITH dimples. How could they not fly?

tsk tsk
with no gravity -why needs to fly?
plus
everything weighs the same
Did they not cover this at the university? (Now you know why I ran screaming from the "repository of stilted thoughts")

You guys smoking those 'funny' cigarettes ??

You mean those " approved for medicinal use " devices?
No
But I have a nice bottle of J D Single Barrel in the cupboard-
Keeps the mind relaxed.

No argument there.

Sorry, but no I do not have any pics. If I did, the Navy would soon have me in one of those concrete rooms with bars on one wall. However, I am trying to nail down a graphic from an old Popular Science issue that had an article about new technologies being used on subs, one of which was the "dimpled" skin. It may have even been in Popular Mechanics or Omni. I used the article for a book report in school so it should have been printed sometime in the early to mid 1980's, but I haven't tracked it down yet. Maybe someone else here who is better at searching or has some connections at Pop Sci and could help me find it?

Your light hearted attempt to dodge the point still supports it If you don't include the F-14 engines, then you will will not get enough speed thus not enough "lift". Therefore, as you alluded in an obscure way in your prior post, any object can create lift if it has enough air (speed) moving past it. But a properly designed airfoil is required for controlled flight of any given craft. I don't think anyone here is lost on that point, unless you really are!