Quote:
Originally Posted by sendler
Apparently careful design has allowed the much thicker concave airfoil to maintain the same drag as the thinner airfoil in the video which was not necessarily chosen for max efficient width.
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Can you imagine the extreme efficiency of an electric Vetter style motorcycle with that pure airfoil top view. Even in the current form of the Vetter fairing which has been made to universal and practical application the gas bikes are over 150 mpg in mixed riding and Hershner's electric streamliner is pushing 300 mpgE.
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We'd never be able to use a laminar section on a motorcycle.They're only for 'flight' conditions,tens of thousands of feet above ground level where there is zero atmospheric turbulence.
The Earth has a turbulent boundary layer which can be measured in kilometers of thickness.Any 'laminar' airfoil operating at ground proximity would be subjected to this ambient turbulence and immediately transition to a full turbulent boundary layer,destroying its potential for laminar BL performance.
Craig Vetter's fairing design is about as low drag as we can expect in the real world.