Ed, don't forget that the coke bottle advantages for a car will
likely need a top view of the car in order to balance the frontal
area as the view proceeds from end to end.
skip
At 10:37 AM 4/29/2007, Ed Weldon wrote:
>OK you guys. Time to get your feet back on the gound. The king of the
>aerodynamics factors is frontal area. All these other streamlining issues
>are just a bunch of court jesters. (tickle, tickle......that should get'm
>all stirred up.)
>
>Do you know what your frontal area is? OK, if you do you may not be
>interested in what's below. If your car is a brick, like a street roadster
>(OK, Rocket Science with the '34 body is at least trying) or a stock body
>there's not much fruit on that tree. But others up to special
>construction....that's where it becomes important. It's probably a good
>thing we can't easily measure frontal area or there would be a lobby to add
>that complexity to our class breakdowns. (more tickles)
>
>But wait!! Anybody out there know what a planimeter is? It's an arcane
>drafting tool little known outside the world of professional draftsmen or a
>few scientific disciplines. It's used to measure irregular areas usually in
>square inches. Do a Google search on that word. Search ebay and you'll
>find old mechanical planimeters selling in the range of $20 to $60.
>For our application get a frontal view of the car. In the absence of a
>scale drawing use a photo. Get your longest telephoto lens and get as far
>away from tha car as you can and still be able to fill the viewfinder frame.
>This reduces the perspective effect that would shrink the size of the rear
>parts of the car. Before you snap the photo put something of known length
>in the scene that you'll scale the picture off of. Don't forget to read the
>instructions on how to use this new gadget.
>Ed Weldon
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