Quote:
Originally Posted by tasdrouille
That would be a major source of drag.
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Depends on how you do it. A largemouth intake would be draggy, offset somewhat by the fairing effect of the airfoil that follows in its wake.
OTOH, you could feed the inflatable airfoil from, say, a duct at the nose stagnation point.
Or, it may well be self-inflating by billowing. Ever notice how the shirt or jacket of a motorcyclist billows out behind his back? This even though his jacket cuffs are not air intakes. Why would this not work?
Seems to make convertible car tops billow at highway speed, due to pressure differential and Bernoulli effect.
Here's a cheap and easy experiment for one of you pickup truck guys: Duct tape a piece of cheap plastic tarp to the top rear of your cab, then down the sides of the rear cab corners, then along the lip of the cargo bed. Make it moderately taught, but with just enough slack to billow up into a rounded bubble. Drive down the road at speed. Observe fuel economy. Report back.
I'll bet this works pretty good, esp. with a bit of tinkering.