Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe wrote:
"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
link.net...
...
But those webbed tailgate thingies have GOT to increase drag.

Don't they???

Richard

OK, Following up on on old thread.

I spent the day working in an automotive wind tunnel today, and I thought to
ask the operator if he had tried tailgate up / down in the tunnel.

He said they did a bunch of tests on an F150 and found that a tonnau cover
was best, a cap was nearly as good, tailgate up was better than down (I
forget if there was a difference between down and removed) and the web
things were the worst.

With the tailgate up, when they used smoke, the smoke would go over the roof
and then come down and touch the top of the tailgate.

--
Geoff
The Sea Hawk at Wow Way d0t Com
remove spaces and make the obvious substitutions to reply by mail
When immigration is outlawed, only outlaws will immigrate.


I work on the RJ program and it was once explained to me, in a
discussion of devices to slow airflow in ducts, that a wire mesh
structure has far more drag and will create a much larger and more
permanent (longer lasting effect downstream) drop in velocity than a
single obstruction, even if the single obstruction is much larger. In
our case, a nozzle type restrictor used on the cockpit air duct had a
fraction of the effect on velocity downstream, that the mesh screen at
the outlet had, and was basically useless. So it's easy to see how
those tailgate screens are the worst thing to do for drag.

John