Apologies for not replying here sooner. I haven't had much interest the last few months in commenting on this forum, but I've been checking in from time to time to see what's going on. And it's always just what I expect. Today it looks like we have someone misreading a Green Car Reports article and attributing the Lucid Air's drag coefficient to the new Prius (and others drawing conclusions from that without bothering to check the source and verify that it's true or not), yet another claim that aerodynamics is so complicated that you're better off just following a template, and a grossly oversimplified claim of the relationship between drag coefficient and base area. *sigh*
Yes, Amateur Aerodynamics is my site. You all are free to comment there or even send me a message--it's right there in the sidebar menu--so I'm not sure how you think I'm commenting without facing "the pointy arrows of the public's feedback." But whatever; the reason I don't comment here anymore (and end up venting a lot of my frustrations on my own site) is because the community here is so insular and believes such weird things that just about any attempt at non-conformity is met with unproductive personal attacks. That's why aerohead refrained from commenting on this thread beyond his cryptic posts; he devolves into ad hominem attacks far too easily and is probably afraid he'll be banned. Again. You've successfully built this forum into your own echo chamber, aerohead, so comment away.
As far as my ego: I am not a professional aerodynamicist. It's right there in the name. I have an associates degree in engineering, and I am currently applying for a bachelor's program in aerospace engineering, but I don't have experience in a wind tunnel or aero lab (although I will if I get into this program, which is one reason I decided to apply to it). I haven't misrepresented myself on my site; you can read about how I got here and what my experience is under the "About" tab. What I
do have are an extensive and up-to-date library on car aerodynamics and a lot of experience now testing things on my cars in the real world, and I conclude many of my posts by encouraging readers to do the same: read, test, measure things, figure out how to see what you're looking for, learn something. Don't believe me, or Julian, or aerohead, or a textbook. You don't have to! If you read something that sounds outlandish, verify it for yourself. If you're wondering what a modification to your car will do, design a test that will show you. If you try a test technique and it fails, figure out how you can improve it or be critical and honest with yourself about what you may not have done well enough the first time and try it again (for example, I had to attempt throttle-stop testing
several times before I was able to figure out what to do to get consistent results that I could actually trust). As Julian said here quite often, and which very few of you appear to have taken to heart: I don't have a monopoly on testing.
Tested this last week.
A few weeks ago; I was very wrong in my predictions about what these changes would do.
Earlier this summer.
Coming up, once it stops snowing here.
I expect I won't come back here. There's no point; if you all want to learn, the resources are out there, and trying to have any reasonable discourse here just turns into shouting at a wall of inanity. If I get into this aerospace program, I won't have time to write much anyway, and I might shut my website down then--so, if you find something useful (I think "Practical Guidelines," "Tuft Testing," and "Measuring Aerodynamic Pressures" are the three I would choose--well, those and the pipe organ voicing post, since that's a subject only a handful of people know anything about and I thought I explained it pretty well), please copy it and save it for future reference. And most important, go test! Buy some cheap equipment and measure pressures, get your cellphone camera or a GoPro or a friend and tuft test your car, figure out how to measure changes in drag (just this month, Julian and I have talked about two new techniques that may allow measurement of drag changes on hybrids and EVs. You may be able to come up with your own, and if you do please share it).
I'll end by quoting Sovran's concluding address at the 1976 GM conference on aerodynamics. I think it's very relevant:
"We have explored the heretofore distinct possibility that answers to some of the key questions about the three-dimensional flow fields of road vehicles lie, for the taking, in the vast bluff body literature on simple, aeronautical and architectural configurations. Is it possible that the knowhow already exists and all that is necessary is to pose the proper questions to the right people? I think it is now clear that this is not the case. We might have hoped for better, but at least we can check off that possibility and get on with the specifically directed research that is required" (
Aerodynamic Drag Mechanisms of Bluff Bodies and Road Vehicles [1978], 370).
That research is ongoing, and you can join in.