1500 mph is way way off, that's almost Mach 2. I've seen a duck sized bird obliterate an F-18 windscreen that was flying at less than 300 knots. That's almost 350 mph, and of course Formula 1 cars don't go nearly that fast, but birds are squishy, a wheel & tire assembly isn't. Those windscreens and canopies are many layers of material and they shatter upon breaking and leave extremely sharp and jagged edges. There's not a very good equivalent of car safety glass in canopies and windscreens that I've seen. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist though.riff_raff wrote:Supersonic jet bubble canopies are actually incredibly strong. They are designed for resisting the impact of a large bird at 1500mph. They are made from something like Lexan, and are usually quite thick, up to 1 inch thick in some areas.
I don't know if this idea would be feasible in practice, but it's definitely worth some study. There are several racing incidents that come to mind, where this device may have been helpful. Felipe Massa, Christiano DeMatta, Aryton Senna......
That test in the video is heavily biased towards rubber side impact. That's pretty much a best case scenario and not at all representative of a real world impact, and in my opinion completely worthless. There's nothing in that test that could start a stress fracture, like a wheel scratching the transparency when it hits, so it's not representative of what might happen. They need to test with something metal hitting it to test its actual strength.
