The wierdest Wings I've seen yet (you never know what comes next)

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Originally Posted by fousto

does the wing represent the speed of the car?? Like in elephant

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:rotflmao: :rotflmao:


It's definitely getting harder to take them seriously - what next? helmets with wings for Jenson and Rubens? Oh no... that'd be movable aero :rolleyes:

Just wait till they add the trunk, and paint the car grey..................

That's a bad bad look. :mark:

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Originally Posted by Tomski

Just wait till they add the trunk, and paint the car grey..................

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They decided to paint it pink instead

spy pic :p
http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/9...hantum2.th.jpg

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Originally Posted by dchen

Your last couple of sentences pretty much answered your question. The primary aerodynamic characteristic engineers seek for airplane is high lift and low drag. The goal is to take almost all the drag out, while maximizing the lift. If I remember correctly, most of the drag from gliders and commercial jets come from viscous drag, which is the drag due to the boundary layer, created by the viscousity of fluid (air in this case) interacting with a no-slip boundary. The form drag by the cross section of the planes is very minimal compare to overall drag value. It's reason why airplane look so "clean".

A F1's goal is to achieve the best handling, not necessary the car with least amount of drag. To do this, you can use many of these small aero devices to control flow, either to divert flow over the tires, or to control the flows to the rear wing. These devices changes the flow characteristics, but they also introduce drag. The goal is to maximize the downforce while maintaining the correct center of pressure so the car will work correctly. That's very far from the aerodynamic goal of airplane, which is to achieve the highest L/D along with keeping the center of pressure near the center of gravity.

Bottom line is, airplane is looking for the most efficient aerodynamic design, and F1 is looking for the best handling design, efficient or not.

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You basically summed up my understanding as well, which is why I believe that if we want to get rid of the winglets the FIA needs to put more emphasis on improving efficiency.

If the teams have to strive to meet a fuel consumption target, then the wind tunnel work will be aimed more at aerodynamic efficiency than outright downforce. The FIA could gradually wind up the efficiency targets year on year, forcing the teams to gradually reduce all the winglets as outright cornering speed is sacrificed just so they can finish the race.

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Originally Posted by luvracin

You basically summed up my understanding as well, which is why I believe that if we want to get rid of the winglets the FIA needs to put more emphasis on improving efficiency.

If the teams have to strive to meet a fuel consumption target, then the wind tunnel work will be aimed more at aerodynamic efficiency than outright downforce. The FIA could gradually wind up the efficiency targets year on year, forcing the teams to gradually reduce all the winglets as outright cornering speed is sacrificed just so they can finish the race.

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I think another thing FIA can do is get rid of chicanes. The less tight corners you have, the less likely you are going to need high downforce setup. If more courses are like Monza without the chicanes, then you can very well have a "cleaner" car.

I don't think fuel economy will do much for them, because they can just make the engine for efficient and decide to make up the time in the corner by going even faster. Who knows what kind of ugly animal we would get if that's the case.

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Originally Posted by luvracin

You basically summed up my understanding as well, which is why I believe that if we want to get rid of the winglets the FIA needs to put more emphasis on improving efficiency.

If the teams have to strive to meet a fuel consumption target, then the wind tunnel work will be aimed more at aerodynamic efficiency than outright downforce. The FIA could gradually wind up the efficiency targets year on year, forcing the teams to gradually reduce all the winglets as outright cornering speed is sacrificed just so they can finish the race.

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As Valve already mentioned briefly, aren't many of the winglets put in place to minimise the damage tyres and other structures have on efficiency.

You could have mandatory FIA wind tunnel tests where cars would have to pass some regulation airflows. It would be very hard to police but could help with overtaking if certain amount of laminar airflowshould exist behind the car.

that's not ugly looking, that's a pathetic looking!

but that's clearly some innovation, a bit like in the 70's :)

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Originally Posted by ArrowsFA1

The problem is that all these aero parts might well add performance, but they are damaging the racing. If the 'pinnacle of motorsports' is to be a procession, the order of which is determined by who has the best wind-tunnel then the FIA have got things wrong.

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To expand on this:

If the racing becomes dull and uncompeditive due to technology, is it still a sport or just a fancy parade with lots of protocol?

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Originally Posted by Dave Brockman

So, here's the question. Why don't aircraft have all these stupid winglets and flipups all over them? :crazy:

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As a former aerodynamicist, the answer is that aircraft design is not regulated, whereas the flat-bottom regulation of an F1 car means that the only surface an aerodynamicist has to play with is the top half of the car. In effect, this means that the top surface has to do twice the work, hence the appendages and aero-tricks.

If aircraft were restricted to only having aerodynamic work on the top surface in this way......they wouldn't fly.