land-speed
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Re: Race bike Stability and Safety

To: "Bryan A. Savage Jr" <basavage@earthlink.net>,
Subject: Re: Race bike Stability and Safety
From: Skip Higginbotham <saltrat@pro-blend.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 08:26:46 -0500
OK then......weather vane principal. CG is the pivot.  How much "variable"
area (force?) to put aft of the CG so that the moment is strong enough the
make the vehicle tend to run into the wind and still have enough weight on
the rear wheel(s) (rear drive) to provide propulsion. It isn't easy to make
it perfect........I think that it is easy to approximate though. The forces
would add to the effect of the tires trying to make the vehicle run in a
straight line (airplanes don't get this advantage). Principal certainly
applies to airplanes and rockets to make them stable....designers seem to
try to get the drag minimized by making the tail small and retain stability
by adding active control systems. We can't do that.....so......weather
vane? How should I do it and stay out of a wind tunnel?
Skip



At 10:16 PM 9/9/02 -0700, Bryan A. Savage Jr wrote:
>We're talking aeroDYNAMICS here. I'll bet the CP moves around DYNAMICALLY
>as speed and attitude change.
>
>I was wondering, if it was easy then why have several aircraft companies
>had to modify a design, after flight test showed instability, by
>increasing the size of the vertical stabilizer?
>
>Bryan

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