Who was the first to put a downforce wing on a racecar?

[jjn9128]

Have a closer look, wing is not "inverted", but AoA is def' - in 'downforce' mode..

Incorrect - the wings on the speed record cars were lift producing to reduce rolling resistance - as I mentioned earlier. An upright wing will still produce lift with a nose down attitude.

[g70]

<Si, fu la Chaparral nel Campionato Mondiale Prototipi. L'anno successivo l'ing. Mauro Forghieri, progettista delle Ferrari (F1 e Prototipi), introdusse per primo l'alettone nella F1. Il concetto poi fu esasperato da Chapman con la Lotus.>

Yes, It was the Chaparral in the WC prototypes. The following year ing Forghieri (Ferrari) introduced it in Formula 1.

[Tommy Cookers]

[quote=jjn9128]
[quote=J.A.W.]Have a closer look, wing is not "inverted", but AoA is def' - in 'downforce' mode..[/quote]

Incorrect - the wings on the speed record cars were lift producing to reduce rolling resistance - as I mentioned earlier. An upright wing will still produce lift with a nose down attitude.[/quote]

sorry about the messy quote

J.A.W is right about the Opel wing - though such a cambered wing would be very inefficient at that negative AoA
otherwise how do people think those old planes (Tiger Moth, Jungmann etc etc etc etc) were ever flown inverted ?

that bloody Thrust car had fancy 'computer-control' of front:rear ride height to manage axle load at transonic speeds
but because heat etc always blew it up the 'suspension' strut was mechanically locked for the record runs - giving excess DF
its record as the world's fastest plough (plow) may never be beaten

Thunderbolt weighed 7 tons
that Mercedes nearly as much - but the record attempt was to have been in Germany on an autobahn

so-called spoilers on sports prototypes came before F1 type wings
some were very large - did any produce net DF ? (we can't ask Mr Ginther now)

[jjn9128]

J.A.W is right about the Opel wing - though such a cambered wing would be very inefficient at that negative AoA
otherwise how do people think those old planes (Tiger Moth, Jungmann etc etc etc etc) were ever flown inverted ?

I dunno what to say, everything I've read about those early land speed cars was that it was for lifting the car?!

[Tommy Cookers]

well I did a quick check first

true a heavily cambered section (flat or concave underside, convex upper) needs more negative AoA to give DF
a Gottingen 387 gives lift at -6deg AoA, transitions through zero lift at -7deg AoA, and gives DF at -8deg AoA
the big thing in the 1920s when Germans particularly were replacing wire-structure biplanes with cantilever monoplanes
isn't the 'Opel' rocket car 1928 ?

but slightly cambered sections transition around -1deg AoA (and symmetrical ones at 0deg AoA of course)

it would be interesting to see what has been written about this in LSR cars

[NutritionFact]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel-RAK

Interesting story.. Lands peed record

[Greg Locock]

Using aerodynamic lift to reduce rolling resistance is rarely a good idea. WAG L/D for a good stubby wing is 10:1, WAG coefficent of rolling resistance is 10%-15% and high pressure tubed tires can be down at 5% (measured).

[strad]

Have a closer look, wing is not "inverted", but AoA is def' - in 'downforce' mode..

JAW is that not from angle and not from shape?
I would have thought it would have nailed the front down so hard the rear would become light.
I don't really know but I do know it would take a fair amount of intestinal fortitude to strap yourself into the thing.

[strad]

I didn't mean to imply that Opel was the first but every reference I have credits him.
As far as AoA I offer this quote

In the late 1920s, German Opel engineers were designing the world's first rocket-propelled car called the Opel RAK 1. Unfortunately, being rocket cars, they kept taking off. To deal with this issue, they strapped some big ol' wings on the side, and carried on

[J.A.W.]

I didn't mean to imply that Opel was the first but every reference I have credits him.
As far as AoA I offer this quote

In the late 1920s, German Opel engineers were designing the world's first rocket-propelled car called the Opel RAK 1. Unfortunately, being rocket cars, they kept taking off. To deal with this issue, they strapped some big ol' wings on the side, and carried on

Race car airfoils are generally mounted 'inverted' - to provide 'lift' as downforce,
- since this produces significantly lower drag than operating via a high AoA, on balance.

Jet thrust cars do have different power-delivery dynamics to wheel-driven machines too, of course.
Art Arfons utilized a wing for downforce - above the front axle on his LSR machines - in the early `60s.

[Tommy Cookers]

now looking at low Re/heavily undercambered aerofoils like the rocket car's I can see .......
they do give DF at a certain 'threshold' negative AoA .... but .....

the DF coefficient tends to be constant with further increase in negative AoA
and at very low Re the DF may decrease with that further increase in negative AoA

this may be what jjn was thinking of ....
the designers (iirc the rocket group's not Opel's) were being clever with something

[jjn9128]

this may be what jjn was thinking of ....
the designers (iirc the rocket group's not Opel's) were being clever with something

Nope not at all ... from my Benzing:

Historically, we could cite earlier examples of cars with aerofoils, like certain land speed record (LSR) cars,
where the function was merely one of stability (even providing lift in the rocket-powered Opel of 1928, to reduce rolling resistance) or on the Mercedes of the 1952-55 period, where they served primarily as airbrakes. But the large centre-rear wing that appeared on the Porsche of another young engineer, Michael May of Switzerland, was definitely mounted for downforce: in 1956, however, it was banned both at Monza and at the Nurburgring because it was deemed dangerous. Consequently, the Chaparral is unanimously recognised as the first instance of a wing applied to a racing car that actually raced, and the first case where this solution was used to resolve tire adherence problems, adherence being split into the forces of traction, braking and lateral acceleration.

[johnny comelately]

1962 Jim Rathmann's Simoniz Vista Special Watson Roadster via Smokey Yunick (pilot in WW2 among other things)
Notice the perspex end plates.

“We also [tried] a wing over [the] driver. Yup. I had the first winged car at Indy,” Yunick wrote. “Bruce Crower’s from San Diego and he’s got some buddies from consolidated in airplane manufacturing who built the wing for us. The wing has way too much camber in it; straightaway and turn speed is identical, but [the] engine is laboring all the way around and driver don’t want to play with it. ’Course when we put wing on, all the media runs over and attacks it in their contributions daily to racing fans.”

It would take until 1968 for Formula 1 to allow its constructors to follow Yunick’s lead by adopting front- and rear-mounted wings, and as tempted as he might have been to return in 1963 with more wing designs to try, the option was removed.
“The wing had potential,” he wrote. “Why didn’t I try in subsequent years? It was banned shortly after.”

By 1969, USAC changed its stance on wings, allowing polesitter A.J. Foyt and the entire front row for the 53rd Indy 500 to harness the power of air to improve cornering speeds. From Parnelli Jones’s wingless pole speed of 150.6 mph in 1962, to Foyt’s wing-aided 170.6 mph in 1969, to Scott Dixon’s 226.760 mph pole last year using Chevy’s aero kit, the evolution of wings at the Brickyard has an unlikely author.

[johnny comelately]

According to reports from the limited testing Rathmann was willing to do during practice, the wing was incredibly effective in the corners … and too effective on the straights. Forget the 180 mph top speeds; the first winged Indy car turned laps at 146 mph because the wing kept it at 146 around all 2.5 miles.

Smokey’s bright idea was too aggressive for first-time use; with a smaller wing, or a series of wings built to various dimensions to test, it’s possible he and Rathmann could have had the winning formula. Removing the wing, Rathmann qualified at 146.6 mph – roughly the same average speed he achieved with the wing – but as Yunick documented in his acclaimed autobiography “Best Damn Garage in Town,” the Offy would not have lasted 500 miles if it had to pull the wing through the air.

[J.A.W.]

Also back in `62, Art Arfons started putting wings on his homebuilt turbo-jet LSR cars, eventually getting 550+mph..