[autogyro]

Hi
This is my first posting, but I've been a member for sometime, and thought I should share some stuff I've come by.
First the video:

I can't add links yet (I fail to understand this policy), but you can search YouTube under autogyro46.
The shape is shown in the attachment.

This is the start of a crazy project which should soon result in a 1/4 scale model, using a roof-rack "wind tunnel"*, for which I'm developing some laptop based instrumentation. Then, who knows, full scale?

I suspect many of you have already used Flow Illustrator, and therefore need no introduction. For those of you that haven't, it's a revelation! This particular model was first developed in JavaFoil, another free download, and tranferred in a .bmp file to Flow Illustrator.
( Yes you can achieve low CD values "on paper". I have a copy of Morelli's two seminal articles which, if you read between the line have a lot of useful info.)

Although both of these tools are only 2D, (not to mention paper!) they are very revealing, showing how difficult it is to prevent flow separation.
All this will probably be put into a CFD program like Symscape, certainly before I go to full scale. I'm trying to avoid really expensive mistakes.

Thanks everyone.

*There's a discussion of this topic on another forum, EngTips, under "roof-rack wind tunnel" for anyone who's interested. Re the instrumentation, that a work-in-progress, too, but should be up and running soon. If anyone's interested let me know.( BTW: instrumentation is what I do in "real life")