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Originally Posted by Old Mechanic
Good to hear from you Robert. For a while I though the aliens had taken you to another planet.
regards
Mech
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Nope, my mind is still intact. I've just been satisfying my engineering cravings at work and elsewhere. But it's nice to see posts from the familiar faces here again.
@kach: It's a shame, but one of the reasons cities like London and New York have such good subway systems and walkability is that travelling by car is so terrible. If you build better highways or raise speed limits, people aren't going to spend any less time driving to work, they're just going to live farther away. That's why I'm not so sad that efficiency improvements like the "air taxi" died last decade.
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Originally Posted by tortoise
The aerodynamic drag of ten Insights going 560 mph, that is. (Wouldn't that be fun?)
I believe drag coefficents on aircraft are calculated using area in plan view (from above or below) rather than frontal area.
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Drag coefficients for cars, fish, and aircraft use different reference areas, but Cd*A is still comparable.
Ten Insights going 560 mph at 37000ft. That would be fun. Everyone would need supplemental oxygen, though. Air density is a quarter of what it is at sea level.
Suppose an Insight gets 75mpg at 68mph. Suppose it were driving at the above altitude and speed, ignoring a while slew of problems with the idea. Aerodynamic drag is proportial to speed squared times density, so it would be 16 times greater at 560mph. You burn fuel 16 times as fast, but cover ground 8 times as fast. Therefore, you'd be getting around 38mpg.
@TVago: People who spend their money as they see fit often buy destructive things, like gasoline. Doing whatever you want with your money is your right. However, acting without regard to the impact of your actions on others is, at best, childish. We can do better.