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Old 05-15-2010, 05:24 PM   #4 (permalink)
cujet
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Way back when (30 years ago), my aerodynamics instructor in college gave the brick analogy. I probably don't remember the exact numbers correctly, but I am certain of the overall outcome.

Put the brick in the school wind tunnel, longways. Round the nose, drag drops by 8% (or something like that). Take a new brick and simply taper the tail (boat tail design) and drag drops by something like 70%. Combine the two and overall drag is greatly reduced.

Fast forward many years. The nose of piston powered Cessna/Piper single engine aircraft are often really ugly looking. Yet, they fly without excessive drag. Cowling mods produce nothing. However, reducing the cooling air inlet size does result in substantial drag reduction.

You might think about the drag increasing aspects of the hood to windshield angle and the cooling drag issues first.
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