Quote:
Originally Posted by aerohead
NASA may have begun with the 1963 'oval' nose,as developed by GM researchers and then went from there.
Even with the NASA mods,the airstream will begin to deform long before it reaches the truck as reported by Prandtl in the 1920s/30s.
This cab might have had attached flow before the mods.
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There's a weird tendency on this forum to think attached flow is all that matters for drag... I think it's just a bandwagon mentality--- a few members who consider themselves experts constantly talk about attached flow, and that becomes the common wisdom. But what also matters is the energy it takes to move air aside. Just because you have a bubble making airflow look nice in a wind tunnel doesn't mean it's not taking more energy than if the "bubble" was made of metal.