Rear wing

Yesterday the weather cleared up and combined taking De Kikker out for a spin with doing errants. Both rag up and rag down, Local roads, highway. Obviously not enough for a deeply founded examination nor any measured data. Very clear though is that the car is way more stable at the front. That seems odd but is logical and as hoped for; the turbulence at the rear is seriously reduced by the wing.

Will be flying down to the coast this afternoon, back up tomorrow; luxury problem; girlfriend management.
First though some hurried winter preps on the farm as before first light Monday morning I am off to the hospital for some more titanium bits.
Hence the gf management; they both want to be max. involved and that is potentially a case of more being less.
Going to be ´fun´ btw; a zip line of staples and the bucket seats.
My original plan was to self drive to the hospital and ditto back Wednesday but I have been convinced not to. Hence the ... yes, you get the idea; both want to etc. and my son is still a few months from getting his drivers license.
Anyway, first disconnect, dismantle, cover some water equiment as the serious frost will be here next week.
Then... fly away, fly away-ay...

Done highway only. One bit rather quick, overtaking a few large trucks with sidewind. Impressive stability now.

Have a look at this ´Sports´ Citroen rear end:

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- A Kamm tail.
- The dividing piece between vertical rear glass and the inclined window is formed into a  tear off ledge.
- The wing tilts slightly úpwards but has an angle of attack relative to the air flow following the rear window downwards.
- The rear of the wing and rear of the lip are vertically above eachoter; the lower lip increasing the speed of the flow under the wing, increasing it´s efficiency.

mostly done for stability. there is an mpg reduction in doing this unless there's huuge diffuser tunnels (which i think is a preferred downforce method for low drag)

A lot of times wings and another exterior additions are done either for styling or because the manufacture messed up,- this was coming from an automotive engineer who interned at Ford and was part of the project team for the new Mustang back in 2010 who's brain I picked. 

As time progressed from the 80s more manufactures started to streamline their designs and incorporated emerging engineering  science so they don't have to use wings as a bandaid. If you look at most factory supercars they lost their wings because they figured out how to design cars better.  

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Posted by: @dev

A lot of times wings and another exterior additions are done either for styling or because the manufacture messed up,- this was coming from an automotive engineer who interned at Ford and was part of the project team for the new Mustang back in 2010 who's brain I picked. 

As time progressed from the 80s more manufactures started to streamline their designs and incorporated emerging engineering  science so they don't have to use wings as a bandaid. If you look at most factory supercars they lost their wings because they figured out how to design cars better.  

 

 

 

 

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for starters understanding od aero has advanced rather a lot. Sofar that if marketing and State regulations take a back role, even a hypercar for the road can be designed to be an airfoil itself not needing any extra spoilers. Noble Cars UK are a véry good example. From spoiler specials to a good looking airfoil on wheels. Point is that he is largely excempt from all sorts of regulations and sits in a very small niche with exclusve price tags.

For larger production cars things have different priorities; State rules are a hard framework and stylist bending over backwards to design something attractive looking lóath the aero engineers. All that at a budget. Do not underestimate the tensions there. Most cars end up being not bad = good enough, even today. The broader the intended public/ the larger the sales goal, the more so.

The Citroen C4 example I gave is a case in point. The base version is ok. Looks clean, offends no sensitive tastebuds. The various VTR/S versions have  various spoilers not improving the line but improving Cw and/or stability as well as having a visual ´Sports´ look agenda.

Back to the Spyder, 0.35 is not impressive and there is room or improvent in several aereas (pun intended), especially stability.  No, no próblem; just can be better.

Copied the original sideplates in ´cartón pluma´.

Looks identical, but is 50 grams both instead of 500 each.

3,4 kg for the assembly now.

May at some point copy the aluminium legs in impregnated multiplex which would see it under 3 kilos just for the heck of it.

Petrus, I hope your hips are doing well! I had both done in '15...it was great to be pain free, able to walk and take stairs.