-------------Forwarded Message-----------------
From: Gary Milligan, Garymanna@compuserve.com
To: INTERNET:autox@autox.team.net
Date: 06/03/99 10:14 AM
RE: Re: FSAE wings.
As a newcomer to Team.Net I hope I am doing evrything correctly!
Further to the FSAE wing debate. I can not remember how many times
that I have heard people say that wings are not worth the effort on Solo II
cars because the speeds where too low. I think that it has now been proven
that wings help a vehicles performance at Solo II speeds. I can not think
of one class of racing where they do not run wings if they are allowed. The
size of these wings would also be much larger than we currently see if they
did not have to meet maximum size restrictions. Virtually every circiut
race car in the world suffers noticible wing induced drag for lower lap
times.
The biggest factor that determines when or how much wing is viable
on any car is determined by the ratio of how much time the vehicle spends
at top speed/ lap time or (more important to our game), how much time we
spend at full acceleration, using all of the power that we have
avaiable/run time.
The one thing that we have to remember when talking about FSAE cars
is that the wings that they add are not there to make them the fastest cars
in the world. These cars just have to be faster than the next FSAE car.
Gary Milligan
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