Quote:
Originally Posted by diesel_john
countersTrike
so you make a mold and lay down a sandwich and what about the plug does it need to pressed. I have been looking at airfoil shapes to put around a car size vehicle but wonder because these shapes have been designed for airplanes (high speed) Is yours as narrow as possible or derived from equations. It is hard for me to believe a shape good at 300mph would be good at 60mph.
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The trike was done at a recumbent bicycle factory (yes; on airport land!) by some sort of vacuum bagging used also for streamliners (at Battle Mountain I think). I did not do that part of building the trike, but I think the shell was cooked- very high temp- into shape. The material used was right out of an airplane catolog- that dark green with little gold threads is that fiberglass and kevlar unpainted.
Yes it is thin- about 36 inches wide and 96 inches long. Like many velomobiles, streamliners, electrothons; mine was done with no equations.
My trike is a similar bad imitation to the 62mph Vector trike- maybe Versatron- which held records in the early '80s, or sort of like the current 81 mph record holders. No way would I try 300mph, but I hit 40mph winds at 20 with no effect even though if combined, the 60mph wind should blow me right off course.
countersTrike