A book to buy and read

[Yippeekyaa]

Both of you, julian and aerohead! Please just stop this back and forth. You both clearly have talents and skills that are polar opposites yet you both continue to embarrass yourselves and this forum like two kids fighting in a sandbox at elementary school recess over which is better, smooth or crunchy peanut butter. One or both of you should just add the other to your ignore list and move on. This battle between you two has gone to proportions that are no longer civil. Just agree to disagree, shake hands and walk away. Now which will be the bigger person and offer a hand and never comment on the others postings again?

[JulianEdgar]

Originally Posted by Yippeekyaa

Both of you, julian and aerohead! Please just stop this back and forth. You both clearly have talents and skills that are polar opposites yet you both continue to embarrass yourselves and this forum like two kids fighting in a sandbox at elementary school recess over which is better, smooth or crunchy peanut butter. One or both of you should just add the other to your ignore list and move on. This battle between you two has gone to proportions that are no longer civil. Just agree to disagree, shake hands and walk away. Now which will be the bigger person and offer a hand and never comment on the others postings again?

Do you actually prefer to have misinformation being spread?! Wasting people's time as they follow incorrect advice? Causing people to develop completely wrong beliefs about the subject of car aero?

I've got this really weird notion that none of those is a great outcome for car modifiers.

So while I can be bothered to continue doing so, I will call out misinformation being posted - from Aerohead or anyone else.

[Fat Charlie]

Originally Posted by JulianEdgar

Do you actually prefer to have misinformation being spread?!

An unhealthily large part of the population over here actually does, it's been in a couple of papers. But Yippeekyaa isn't one of them (at least in this context, we've never met). The problem is one of civility and level of engagement. You've got a lot of good to say, stay on the high road. Internet posts last a long time and personal fights don't make for good reading.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by Yippeekyaa

Posts: 22
Both of you, julian and aerohead! Please just stop this back and forth.
....
Now which will be the bigger person and offer a hand and never comment on the others postings again?

aerohead — Posts: 11,580
JulianEdgar — Posts: 870

Who died and made you Grand Poobah?

It's a messy process but I don't want either of them muzzled. And I'm sure the mods appreciate the traffic it generates.

Eventually the process will equilibirate and we'll be left with two cranky old coots. Fine by me.

[JulianEdgar]

Originally Posted by freebeard

aerohead — Posts: 11,580
JulianEdgar — Posts: 870

Who died and made you Grand Poobah?

It's a messy process but I don't want either of them muzzled. And I'm sure the mods appreciate the traffic it generates.

Eventually the process will equilibirate and we'll be left with two cranky old coots. Fine by me.

Translation: it's better to have misinformation being spread than to actually get the facts out.

Pretty weak.

[JulianEdgar]

I actually don't think people get it.

I used to wait after Aerohead posted something that was completely wrong - wait for someone to say "No, that's not right", but what people would do was to instead thank him for being misled!

A classic example: Aerohead saying that on the current Porsche Cayenne, the airflow separates at the top of the windscreen and is separated right across the roof. Absolute garbage - which if accepted, is going to lead people astray in almost any aerodynamic car modification that they might try to subsequently think-through on a squareback car.

And there are so many of his posts like that...

When I first came here, I couldn't believe some of the weird things people believed about car aero. And what really gobsmacked me was that they were said with an air of absolute certainty. I knew they couldn't have come from any formal references (textbooks or SAE papers) so I started to look at where they did come from. In nearly every case, they came from what Aerohead was spouting.

I initially tried correcting him (eg look at the Tesla paper on wheel design and don't keep saying that full wheel covers are always best for low drag), but instead of gratefully updating his knowledge, he just poured shXX on Tesla! I couldn't believe it! Then I realised Aerohead isn't really interested in getting correct information out to other posters; he's interested in repeating - ad nauseum - his old misunderstandings.

But as I often say - don't believe me! Go and read the Tesla paper for yourself. Go and put some tufts on a Cayenne. Read some good aero books - like the one this thread was originally about.

As Vman455 has found, as soon as you start looking at the references Aerohead quotes, reading some aero texts and doing some testing, you will quickly find out for yourself that Aerohead writes a great deal of misleading rubbish.

[freebeard]

I used to wait after Aerohead posted something that was completely wrong - wait for someone to say "No, that's not right", but what people would do was to instead thank him for being misled!

I don't know of anyone who thanks people for raging on them more than aerohead himself. Yourself included.

Would that vBulletin supported seeing how many times one user has thanked another.

I generally thank people when they've answered my question. And jokes.

[JulianEdgar]

Originally Posted by freebeard

I don't know of anyone who thanks people for raging on them more than aerohead himself. Yourself included.

Would that vBulletin supported seeing how many times one user has thanked another.

I generally thank people when they've answered my question. And jokes.

I don't know if you're deliberately trying to miss my point, but I am not talking about the 'thanks' button. I am talking about people obviously believing that the rubbish Aerohead has just posted has helped them understand - not in fact hindered that understanding. The thanks is obvious from the tenor of their follow-up questions.

[JulianEdgar]

Originally Posted by Vman455

JulianEdgar hasn't been posturing; he's called you out on a lot of the BS you've been spewing which everyone here (including myself) have been caught up in for quite some time. Quite the contrary: he has consistently maintained, since his arrival on this forum, that we should be TESTING, observing, and experimenting. More than once he has posted that we SHOULD NOT take his word for it, but test, measure, and observe for ourselves. You have responded, consistently, with vitriol, name-calling, and, now, disgusting metaphors. You've set a new low bar.

* * * * *

Back on topic. My copy of Road Vehicle Aerodynamic Design, 3rd ed. (2009), just arrived a few minutes ago. Food for thought--literally the first sentence of Chapter 1:

(emphasis added)

The context of the book and its author are also interesting.

Dick Barnard has a strong background in aviation aerodynamics, where as he says, it's much easier to use equations to make predictions. When we were working on my book, he was always very cautious about advancing theories about what was actually happening in car aero. He used to say to me words to the effect:

"Tell them what is happening, not why it is happening. They (our readers) don't need to know why it is happening, and often it will be too complex for them to understand anyway."

I often remember those words when I read Aerohead's theories - the ones that usually don't match actual, measured, reality.

From what Dick - and also Dr Wolf of Porsche - have said to me, it's very easy in car aero to underestimate the complexity of what is actually going on. It's like ignition timing in car engines - you can theroise all you like but the interactions are so complex that timing charts are still constructed by testing.

[freebeard]

I don't know if you're deliberately trying to miss my point, but I am not talking about the 'thanks' button. I am talking about [obvious mindreading]

I can recall the pushback against Thee Holy Template back when there was only one strong voice on the forum (which you missed). I look forward to the day that the two of you can work together.