Tom Hockley Welcome onboard the speculative engine, most modestly called the F1Technical Forum.
An archeological dig through the cobweb- optical fiber threads on aero could be more exciting than the next Indiana Jones sequel. Buried is an ancient "scroll" where morphing surfaces and my first mention of ultrasonics impacted discussion with the might of a feather (sigh)
I tip my fedora Tom - Thanks for reintroducing and extending the discussion of ultrasonics. Ogami Musashi commented earlier on this thread that the morphing of a bird replication outstrips out currnet computational hardware capacity. Current ultrasonic transducers don't have the wattage to create a morphing aero-body or air wing. But then, when the Apollo program started there wasn't a booster rocket with the thrust to put that payload into space. The hardware will catch up, immodestly our discussion and thousands of other speculations will push developement.Like the progress in graphics. Sprites to Halo 3
Before comments that ultrasonic transducers of that power would destroy the car, perhaps it could be separated/suspended on an electro-magnetic field, standing wave or using a combination of ultrasonic transducers ( or computer control of transducer frequency ) dampening to protect the chassis.
Champagne bubbles and Ciro's intro of the torpedo bubble generator clothing the body affects the boundry layer and lowers drag, as so many have commented. I fuzzily explain it with ancient porting lore. At one time intakes were polished to a mirror, without blemish; then it was discovered that the slippery walls encouraged the formation of droplets. Smoother is not always better. In aero smoothness makes drag. If we all went shark fishing off of Columbia's Pacific coast...drank a few rounds... before our politically correct catch and release ... we would probably see that the sharks riblets/scales/micro strakes came in several sizes at different locations on the body... we could play 'poke the shark'
One of the great promises of F1T is that we have a sandbox/ beach/ fishing boat rental where we can 'poke the shark' and woodshed. With F1's cycle of R&D then ban the results . This is a great place.
Welcome on deck Tom Hockley.
Welcome to the crew.
EDIT - What I mean is the forum allows us technological speculation that the constant changes in F1 rules don't or would probably ban. How else to explain brainstorming about the air wing 4 pages?