[aerohead]

This is for any member, guest, or lurker, who's had the misfortune of dead-heading with a Class-8 Tractor, pulling a flatbed semi-trailer.
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You've delivered your load to the customer, you and your team driver have contacted dispatch or a logistics broker and can't find another load anywhere near your location.
Your facing a long OTR stretch, to pick up a load far away, dead-heading with one of the worst examples of modern-day truck aerodynamics!
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Not a problem!
Secured to the trailer's forward bulkhead is another 'tarp.' however, this one has a 'trick.'
It's actually an inflatable, streamlined envelope, designed specifically for this contingency.
It holds all the unused, rolled or folded cargo tarps, plus inflates into a perfectly streamlined half-teardrop, which 'disappears' to nothing, by the end of the flatbed. Powered by the charging system of the tractor. Another 'glad-hand'.
Secured with tie-downs, periodically, along the length of the trailer, you've converted one of the highest-drag 18-wheelers on the road, to the lowest.
In a few minutes.
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With an inflatable gap-filler on the forward face of the same bulkhead, you knock off another 19% drag ( NASA ).
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The upper body is now completely streamlined.
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Another inflatable fairing, under the trailer, behind the rear wheels/ DOT bumper region, trims drag even lower with an underbody 'Kamm-back.
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Then Heaven forbid, you use the five (5) feet, allowed by federal law, to inflate a final underbody boat-tail, outside, beyond the DOT bumper, creating the lowest-drag, 'air-bagged', Class-8 vehicle on Earth. And the fuel economy and range to prove it.
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Trailers are already wired. One larger conductor, to handle the increased current demand of the small blowers aren't rocket science.
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Any cargo load capacity loss of an 80,000-lb GVWR vehicle, due to the added weight of an 'air-bag' system wouldn't even register on the economic radar.
Simple software and Blue-tooth connectivity could easily 'automate' some of these features. Drivers wouldn't be out any extra effort.
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These are the 'Lost Dutchman's Mine' of real wealth. It's very strange to live in a capitalist society which allows profit potential like this to languish and lie dormant for 86-year on. Especially in times of anxiety over electrification of transport and range issues.
Aerodynamics is great for everything except when wheels are involved.
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PS 'steal this invention!'