You don't need a "car-size" wind tunnel to derive aero benefits.
The BWS blue streamliner started out a lakester when two silly boys got
smashed on Thanksgiving and a spare Dustbuster and 4 peanut can lids were
within arm's reach. After they had nailed a variety of lakes records an
engineer pal from Boeing volunteered to carve up a scale balsa model of the
car to sniff out more speed and slippery efficiency. The result of several
months on monkeying around with various back ends gave the boys SCTA's
Points Championship in 1999, or was it 2000? I forget which.
The point is they discovered that Boeing will let employees use the tunnel
for personal projects when "off the clock" and the tunnel is not in use for
Boeing business. Subsequent conversations with many SAE members have
revealed that this also the policy at many other companies.
For 2002, I will again host a group of SAE engineers and their families at
one of the salt events. If anyone is interested to meet some of them (and I
assure you they want to meet ALL of you) please reply to me off-list. We are
always looking for open invites to visit your pit and I always get the
pleading question form someone in the group if they could ride down in a
push vehicle. these folks are fascinated with land speed racing and I
believe great relationships are possible among the backyard and bigshot
engineers -- your passion is the same.
Be Vigilant,
"LandSpeed" Louise Ann Noeth
LandSpeed Productions
Telling Stories with Words and Pictures
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