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Old 12-30-2011, 08:50 PM   #54 (permalink)
drmiller100
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Looking at the front only, on a "normal" vehicle air builds up in front of the car and creates its own invisible buffer, and pretty much makes its own aerodynamic shape. Yes, you can help it along a tiny bit, but in general, the air stacks up in front of the car until it is aerodynamic.
For this reason, any thing which is not aero in front of the car, gets filled with stagnant air, and BECOMES aerodynamic.
On the supersonic jets, the jet is going SO fast it is faster then the speed of sound. Faster then the speed of sound means air cannot stack up in front of the jet - it MUST go sideways in order to get "out of the way" of the jet.

So, the jet's nose is pointed to get the air out of the way.

Frontal area is the size of the car going through the air. The coefficient of drag describes how well the air gets around the car, and gets filled in smoothly behind the car. MOST of the gains in aerodynamics are to be found from the widest and tallest part of the car towards the back.
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