Hit the delete key if your not interested, sorry, but I find this
fascinating. Boy, during the winter, you guys will go on about anything.
;-) Honestly, I think there are a lot of applicable principles here, and
I am amazed at the number of RC soaring guys who are/have been sailors.
(I rec'd a lot of private responses also)
I saw the same program as Brett. The landsailer in question was VERY
impressive. It was designed and built for one thing - to get the land
speed record for land yachts. It was all composite, with long flowing
lines. Even the cockpit was enclosed. It was very clean. The sail/wing
was VERY high aspect ratio, all composite/molded. They were driving this
thing on what looked like a runway, (it wasn't the salt flats) but this
was not the record attempt. They said they had already gone faster than
the current record of (I believe) 88 or 89 mph, and I seem to recall
them saying they had been over 100 mph. The driver was impressed with
its ability to go very fast in light winds. It was impressive to watch
the "boat" accelerate. I now wish I was paying more attention so I could
give you guys more accurate figures.
I'll do a little "surfing" so I can offer some pics.
C-ya
D
Brett Jaffee wrote:
>
> At 11:06 PM 01/04/2000 -0800, Scobie Puchtler or Sarah Felstiner wrote:
> >In reaction to a submission about a landsailer that could make speeds of
> >120mph, Tracy recently wrote:
>
> I should note that the car in question hadn't reached these speeds as of
> the time the show was filmed. It was hoped it would go that fast, though.
>
> > While sailcraft are often seen as 'simply being pushed
> >along by the wind', this is only the case when travelling downwind. When
> >travelling more like perpendicular to the wind, on a 'point of sail'
> >referred to as a 'broad reach', sailcraft become a rather sophisticated
> >balance of vectors, taking wonderful advantage of lift over the foil section
> >of the winglike sail to produce speeds potentially surprisingly higher than
> >the wind itself
>
> Well, that makes some sense. I can see that, with the wind coming from the
> side, the sail is under a constant force from the side, which can being
> redirected to push/pull the craft forward, no matter how fast the wind the
> craft is moving. Since F=MA, the boat/car should continue to accelerate
> until the frictional or drag forces equal the force on the wing/sail.
> OTOH, if going directly downwind, the force on the wing/sail would drop to
> zero as the craft approached the speed of the wind. Is that close to being
> correct?
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> Brett Jaffee: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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