I don't understand how this car works.

@BillRM,

Bill..

Simple questions for you..
Is there energy available when you compare wind to ground?
Is the energy available more than just the wind that is striking the flat car surfaces?

Would you agree that if you can somehow harness wind energy NOT striking the car then you can go faster than the wind?

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

We gone over and over this but once more for the very last time tracking ships are not outrunning the wind as wind is a vector force and when tracking there is indeed wind over the sailing ship in question during most of the tracking even when the scaler speed of the ship is greater then the wind speed. Hell even when you get an average vector in the wind direction most of the time you do have winds forces on the sail the majority of the time.

The car is going directly down wind not tracking little bit therefore it have zero wind in relationship to it at the speed of the wind at the point it hit wind speed at all times.

Zero wind mean zero force mean zero acceleration at wind speed and that mean the ship will not go over the speed of the wind.

So keep waving your hands in the air with tracking ships it not the same at all.

Sorry your hand waving is not working.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

We gone over and over this but once more for the very last time tracking ships are not outrunning the wind as wind is a vector force and when tracking there is indeed wind over the sailing ship in question during most of the tracking even when the scaler speed of the ship is greater then the wind speed. Hell even when you get an average vector in the wind direction most of the time you do have winds forces on the sail the majority of the time.

The car is going directly down wind not tracking little bit therefore it have zero wind in relationship to it at the speed of the wind at the point it hit wind speed at all times.

Zero wind mean zero force mean zero acceleration at wind speed and that mean the ship will not go over the speed of the wind.

So keep waving your hands in the air with tracking ships it not the same at all.

Sorry your hand waving is not working.

Bill, for the last goddamn time,

Even when the CAR is pointed straight, the SAILS of the car - the blades of the propeller - are CONSTANTLY tacking. It is the angle of the sail to the wind that matters.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@parados,

Wind pressure and flow effects over the ground is not going to effect the car to any degree.

All that matter is the wind pressure on the car not the ground.

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

Even when the CAR is pointed straight, the SAILS of the car - the blades of the propeller - are CONSTANTLY tacking. It is the angle of the sail to the wind that matters.

Nonsense no matter what angle you place the prop or sails of a wind craft going directly down wind you get zero force on them from that wind at wind speed.

To tack you need to tack the whole vehicle not a part of it.

Otherwise you could get a sailboat to go faster then the wind downwind without tacking by just moving it sails around.

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Picture a free floating airship with sails or non power driven props.

No matter what the hell you do with either the props or the sails you are not going to drive this ship beyond wind speed.

Without the ability to tack you are going at wind speed with that airship and any wind craft who is going directly downwind either a land craft or a water craft without tacking is in the same condition as that airship for the same reasons.

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Wind pressure and flow effects over the ground is not going to effect the car to any degree.

All that matter is the wind pressure on the car not the ground.

Yes, except you are ignoring the total effect by declaring the only pressure created is from the speed of the wind. That is where your argument fails.

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@parados,

Well other then flow effect and pressure there is not other effect of a wind on a ground that plenty well cover it,

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@BillRM,

Let me ask you Bill. If you increase the amount of friction will the wind do more work?

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>> Sorry your hand waving is not working.

You know Bill, your inability to understand a simple concept does not mean that others are hand waving. It just means you can't understand a simple concept.

But here's a little problem... You want absolute proof positive witnessed by a cop, a priest, and a rocket scientist, and notarized by a judge. I on the other hand really don't care whether you believe it or not - so I'm not particularly inclined to go to the trouble for you.

But I do have the perfect solution. You seem absolutely convinced you're right. So tell me in dollars and cents just how sure you are. If it's enough to make it worth my while, I'll provide whatever evidence you need. You up for a bet - or just bluster?

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@BillRM,

Let me switch the problem around for a second. I am traveling through space at a certain velocity. Along with me is a bowling ball. If I take the bowling ball and push it backwards, does anyone doubt that my forward speed will increase and the speed of the ball will decrease? This problem is similar in that the car and the air are moving forward together. When the prop turns, it is pushing back on the air so the car speeds up.

1 Reply

@engineer,

engineer wrote:

Let me switch the problem around for a second. I am traveling through space at a certain velocity. Along with me is a bowling ball. If I take the bowling ball and push it backwards, does anyone doubt that my forward speed will increase and the speed of the ball will decrease? This problem is similar in that the car and the air are moving forward together. When the prop turns, it is pushing back on the air so the car speeds up.

This analogy doesn't work because anyone pushing back on the ball us expending chemical energy (because living things metabolize chemicals and store that energy).

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

But is does demonstrate why it is important to have wind for this to work and why this doesn't violate the laws of thermodynamics. In still air, the car doesn't go at all and if you push it to get it started, it will stop. The additional energy it takes to go faster than the wind comes from taking energy from the air traveling along with the car, slowing the air and speeding up the car.

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@engineer,

Yup. And even if Bill wants to dispute that the creators have made a physical device which uses that energy efficiently, that's okay - as long as he stops calling it 'energy from nothing,' which nobody is claiming.

Cycloptichorn

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@engineer,

engineer wrote:

But is does demonstrate why it is important to have wind for this to work and why this doesn't violate the laws of thermodynamics. In still air, the car doesn't go at all and if you push it to get it started, it will stop. The additional energy it takes to go faster than the wind comes from taking energy from the air traveling along with the car, slowing the air and speeding up the car.

Any analogy must include the ground interface which drives the prop. It's the wind AND the ground interface which makes it possible.

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

Heck, if I had a perfect analogy, I would have rolled it out 23 pages ago! It seems like Bill was stumped by the "free energy" aspect of the problem, so I tried my best to address that.

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>> Heck, if I had a perfect analogy, I would have rolled it out 23 pages ago!

There are several accurate and correct analogies, and several poor/incorrect ones (most famously the "air-cushion" analogy). But there is definitely no single analogy that's both accurate and convincing to everyone.

Personally, I find the "lever" analogy to be quite good. The craft does no more (or less) than any lever. It trades small-force over a large distance for larger force over a smaller distance. And it does it in just the same way a traditional lever does.

If you don't like that one you can take the boat on a continuously spiraling downwind tack. It's just as valid, and for some folks more intuitive (and for some - less).

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http://www.fasterthanthewind.org/2010/06/come-one-come-all.html

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2 days of NALSA testing complete. ~16-18 speed runs in ~12-13 distinct passes -- wind was lengthwise the lake on the first day giving us room run throught 2 sequential 'traps' on one pass.

Every run well over 2x. Most runs over 2.5x. Best runs near 3x or perhaps above. We won't know details of which runs qualify against NALSA rules until they go through the large amount of data and figure out which runs are best documented. There is a fairly comprehensive list of requirements to be met for a run to be NALSA valid and I'm certain that some runs will be disqualified if all the sensor info was not to their liking (wind switching direction too much during the run, etc).

There are reams of data for them to go through from more than 20 different sensors (multiple gps, wind direction and wind speed sensors) on the vehicle itself, chase vehicle and lakebed, plus multiple video cameras. It will take some time for them to go through it all once they get home.

To say the least we are quite confident of a record over 2x will be ratified by the NALSA BOD.

Sorry BillRM.

JB

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@ThinAirDesigns,

Tech question - is there a central clock which all these instruments are hooked up to, or are they synched before the event?

Cheers! Glad to hear it went well.
Cycloptichorn

0 Replies

I don't understand how this car works.

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