Hi Richard I spoke to you at Farnborough re basic design matters. I spoke to you on Saturday after that rather attractive young lady so I won't be hurt if you do not remember me. I guess you thought I maybe hadn't got my brain into gear when I suggested that the was of conventional design. I stand by that as the Historic DN class could easily evolve into the given a decent CAD package and some high tech parts and materials. I am a Production Engineer and am known (and despised by some)for my constant critisism of the general level of unimaginative and over engineered design work in certain areas of industry. I infer none of this on the you understand. We often start off with a simple concept but miss a few basics in terms of Physics and Mechanical Engineering Science. We then add stuff like complicated seals, brackets and friction reducing finishes. This often impinges on someone elses space envelope so now they have a problem too! But we spent the money now though and Milestones are looming so we stick on a few more fixes and get the thing accepted. Ths is how we over engineer. In my experience we lack senior engineers who can span disciplines and think a total design concept right through to the final few nuts and bolts or blob of bonding agent. Temper your response to my suggestions in light of my somewhat jaundiced viewpoint. As I said I have built three land yaghts many moons past and have a fourth in mind. My ignorance of modern land yaght design is an advantage as I am not impared by convention. Suffice to say that my last lightweight design literally ran rings round the American imports when I was allowed to try it out at Bassingbourne many years ago.
My proposition is for a machine with the vertical wing mounted solid to the fuselage. The wheels would be three in number and all steerable. They all need to be linked in one sense so as to change tack but the single front wheel can be moved indepenently of the two at the rear for steering. Of course you need to stick the machine to the ground but we haven't got too much energy to spare so we need to limit down force to that required to keep the thing upright and limit slip. This is where I kinda got stuck as you really need to be an Aerodynamicist to develope this much further. However some variant of an inverted saucer migh be a good start with bulges for the wheels. You could use ground effect to prevent the thing slipping or flipping but variable geometry would be a must have. Of course I had envisaged a small on board computer and servos to manage the wheels etc. but in my ignorance I had not realised that on board power was banned. This could be undertaken by a not too complicated system of linkages plus a whole lot of pilot training or alternatively a small amount of energy could be bled from wind or wheel to drive a simple mechanical "computer" and servo system. By now you can begin to see the advantages of the in terms of design and engineering but should we let that put us off?
Well Richard I would be most interested to hear your views on this proposition but more power to your elbow anyway. Why am I not surprised that the Ice yaght went quickest?
Cheers]
Ken
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