Vortex ram

Quoted message said:

Hello all,

I had envisioned drawing a vortex using a big dish a tube and a small
dish.

I've made a page with an illustration here.

http://gabydewilde.googlepages.com/vortex-ram

Let me think what you hear ok?

Thank you,

gaby de wilde

Apparently you don't know what a vortex is.

You seem to be trying to come up with something that has negative
drag. Negative drag does exist, but only in very special situations.
Aircraft engine designers often use it to reduce the total drag of an
engine.

Paul Cardinale

Paul Cardinale said:

Quoted message said:

Hello all,

Quoted message said:

I had envisioned drawing a vortex using a big dish a tube and a small
dish.

Quoted message said:

I've made a page with an illustration here.

Quoted message said:

http://gabydewilde.googlepages.com/vortex-ram

Quoted message said:

Let me think what you hear ok?

Quoted message said:

Thank you,

Quoted message said:

gaby de wilde

Apparently you don't know what a vortex is.

You seem to be trying to come up with something that has negative
drag. Negative drag does exist, but only in very special situations.
Aircraft engine designers often use it to reduce the total drag of an
engine.

Paul Cardinale

Hello Paul

Thanks, for the keywords. "negative drag" was what I was looking for.
I read a mohawk like sail can have negative drag while driving up
wind. I imagine it to be as solid as possible and part of the body
with the body having long tail with a decrease in volume over the
length. It should be a very slim vehicle possibly adjustable to the
shoulders width for max performance, then have something like an 8
degree decrease and drive up the wind under an angle of 10 degrees.

Are there any other ways you know of to make negative drag?

Quoted message said:

Thanks, for the keywords. "negative drag" was what I was looking for.
I read a mohawk like sail can have negative drag while driving up
wind. I imagine it to be as solid as possible and part of the body
with the body having long tail with a decrease in volume over the
length. It should be a very slim vehicle possibly adjustable to the
shoulders width for max performance, then have something like an 8
degree decrease and drive up the wind under an angle of 10 degrees.

Are there any other ways you know of to make negative drag?

Well you could start with negative air.

-----

What are you wanting this thing to do exactly?
,,,,,
If you wish to reduce the drag of a bicycle then the most common ways
that recumbent cyclists do it is by using a rigid plastic front fairing
(such as from Zzipper or Mueller Windwrap) coupled with a "body sock".
This has almost as low drag as a hard-shell body, but is much less
expensive, easier to build and not as sensitive to cross-winds (although
it can still be a handful). The lack of wind-chill has large benefits
for cold-weather riding.

There's lots of pictures on the IHPVA site.

Some people use the "real" stuff like fiberglass and various composites,
but many more recumbent riders experiment with making body work
themselves out of a material called coroplast, which is corrugated
plastic. Search Google for "coroplast fairing" for info on where it's to
be got and how's to use it.
~

Paul Cardinale said:

gaby de wilde said:

I had envisioned drawing a vortex using a big dish a tube and a small
dish.

I've made a page with an illustration here.

http://gabydewilde.googlepages.com/vortex-ram

Apparently you don't know what a vortex is.

You seem to be trying to come up with something that has negative
drag.

It looked to me like he was trying to do some sort of boundary layer
control. The whole thing seems counterintuitive to me, but I am often
surprised by the weirdness of aerodynamic forces and principles.

Chalo

Chalo said:

Paul Cardinale said:

gaby de wilde said:

I had envisioned drawing a vortex using a big dish a tube and a small
dish.

I've made a page with an illustration here.

http://gabydewilde.googlepages.com/vortex-ram

Apparently you don't know what a vortex is.

You seem to be trying to come up with something that has negative
drag.

It looked to me like he was trying to do some sort of boundary layer
control. The whole thing seems counterintuitive to me, but I am often
surprised by the weirdness of aerodynamic forces and principles.

Chalo

Dear Chalo,

The animation shows pulsing, which makes things look faintly
plausible.

But if you draw a continuous line to show the path of a steady
airstream, you'll see that the airstream crosses itself.

If you take two hoses, start squirting, and then try to cross the
streams, the combined stream has a shorter range than the two separate
streams--the turbulence where they meet wastes lots of power.

Yes, you can re-direct the flow to provide a _local_ airstream heading
powerfully the wrong way.

But the net effect is increased overal drag, even if you simplify the
design to avoid the airstream crossing itself and just run the air
over the top and out bottom in a Z-path.

Perpetual motion is still just Paganini:

The comments show that RBT threads are perfectly normal.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Carl Fogel said:

But the net effect is increased overall drag, even if you simplify
the design to avoid the air stream crossing itself and just run the
air over the top and out bottom in a Z-path.

Quoted message said:

Perpetual motion is still just Paganini:

Quoted message said:

The comments show that RBT threads are perfectly normal.

Paganini composed pieces that few others could master, and of this it
is told that some musicians looked at a new score he wrote, saying
that it was beyond being played, which Paganini overheard. He entered
the room, asked for a violin and played the piece behind his back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganini

Jobst Brandt

Here Paul,
The ram implosion wing is one of the things that makes me think
Negative drag is a most interesting topic. http://quantumgravitics.tripod.com/id3.html

"After being rejected as an XPrize contestant for an unproven Gravitic
propulsion concept and told repeatedly by the skeptics that my
technology goes against fundamental physics, I realized that I needed
a way of proving once and for all that I had a viable technology so I
decided to install the Ram-Implo-Wing onto the roof of my van.

I knew the wing was going to work but what I had no way of knowing was
that by placing the Ram-wing onto the roof of my van that it would
increase my fuel mileage 2-x above normal. After a little tweaking of
the wing I added a set of elevated wing-lets as well as special
texture (similar to the texture of golf ball) to the wing and I
obtained 3-x above my normal fuel mileage.

After several years of R&D prototyping different types of Ram-Implo-
Wings I have developed the technology into a kit for the Do-It-
Yourselfer.

I know without a doubt that you will enjoy building this very
educational wing kit not to mention the savings in fuel cost by
building a unit that will save you money. That's right, this project
will pay for itself in no time."

My vortex ram idea of course relates more to the frontal surface area.
I'm not claiming it works or even is workable but it's an interesting
topic. Paterson says: "We watched flies on the hood stay in place
until we were traveling over 60 mph. Streamers on the surface of the
vehicle stand perpendicular, rather than parallel to the vehicle." He
also says: "the vortex went nearly 100 feet in front of the van"

Searching around I keep reading how the dimple Surface Character of a
golf ball reduces drag. Robert Patterson says his wing also benefits
from dimples. I get an overall picture of a dimples front end flat at
the rear degrading under about 8 degrees. Can apply it to the whole
body or just a single tube.

It makes you think " impossible! " but he has way to much customers
and builders to go there before taking a deep look into the
stuff. :-)

Paul Cardinale said:

....Apparently you don't know what a vortex is....

I know.... Physicists would say "learn vortex physics first". Bicycle
builders would say "getting in shape makes most of the difference".
Both are right of course.

I(the philosopher *ehm*) will say "learn to dream a little".

It's far easier as getting in shape or learning physics but it does
amplify the things you already do and know and the dream obviously
makes for better mousetraps.

I know before Victor Schauberger died a broken man he said "They took
everything away from me, I don't even own myself anymore" Here is just
one of the many anecdotes in his name of which there are far to much
and which include photos and witnesses of the water wizard. One day he
took on a job. Water was flowing down hill with the goal to collect it
in a basin but the water had much to much kinetic energy so it would
just wash over the basin and collapse the small dyk around it. Victor
made the downhill even steeper and used a much smaller dyk. They
laughed at him. So he stood on top of his dyk and instructed them to
open the gate. But victor created a boal shape basin with the watter
dropping straight down into it with such force it would wash back up
the hill up-against the incoming stream. He was standing next to a
wall of water. But today Victors stuff is still mostly laughed at.

It's pretty weird, you cant really blame people for laughing. Take
this project for example.

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/factuurexpress?p=6802

You have tears in your eyes? no?

The first time I hear about this upwind acceleration topic was 20
years ago. The story was that some aerodynamics student had build a
bike that would go faster and faster straight up the wind. Some one
said he would get hurt if he would continue his project. He made jokes
about it, then one day he was cycling down the super flat Dutch polder
and he was going faster and faster then his breaks didn't have the
capacitance to work up against the acceleration. So he drove himself
into a ditch and crashed his bike at 80 km/hr. He said he always
wondered what that guy was trying to say with his "you will get hurt"
so now he knew and abandoned the project for ever after.

I thought it was a hilarious urban legend.

But still a clue was provided to us.

Now I have 4 clues I'm no longer able to accept 5th and 6th party "it
cant be done" claims. Even without much knowledge of the physics
involved I can google up much interesting documentation.

Kids use their jacket to benefit from side winds. At least I use to. I
remember with the right kind of wind it makes enormous difference.

I also read some Aerogear benefits from high speeds in contrast with
sails which may stop working if you go to fast by lack of attack
angle.

yeah, you could say I enjoy thinking about this vortex ram
velocipede :-)

Any thoughts?

___
http://gabydewilde.googlepages.com/vortex-ram

Quoted message said:

On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 10:48:45 -0800 (PST), Chalo

Quoted message said:

Paul Cardinale wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

gaby de wilde wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> I had envisioned drawing a vortex using a big dish a tube and a small
> dish.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> I've made a page with an illustration here.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>http://gabydewilde.googlepages.com/vortex-ram

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Apparently you don't know what a vortex is.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

You seem to be trying to come up with something that has negative
drag.

Quoted message said:

It looked to me like he was trying to do some sort of boundary layer
control. The whole thing seems counterintuitive to me, but I am often
surprised by the weirdness of aerodynamic forces and principles.

Quoted message said:

Chalo

Dear Chalo,

The animation shows pulsing, which makes things look faintly
plausible.

But if you draw a continuous line to show the path of a steady
airstream, you'll see that the airstream crosses itself.

But that assumption, and the animation, are not necessarily indicative
of how the system might work.

It might pulsate, buffet, and cause all sorts of major turbulence--
which is what I would guess from having a look at the idea. But there
remains the possibility that the thing could scoop off some of the
boundary layer, which would in turn maintain a "bubble" that more or
less mimicked a solid nose cone. If that were the case, I still don't
know why that would be better than just using a solid nose cone. And
it looks like it would be harder to get it right than to get it wrong
and end up with a Cd of >1.0.

Quoted message said:

Perpetual motion is still just Paganini

I didn't assume that the OP was attempting to design a device that
would be propelled directly into the airstream passing over it. If
that's what he was getting at, it's pretty silly.

Chalo

Quoted post said:

Hello all,

I had envisioned drawing a vortex using a big dish a tube and a small
dish.

I've made a page with an illustration here.

http://gabydewilde.googlepages.com/vortex-ram

Let me think what you hear ok?

Thank you,

gaby de wilde

I'm too much of a moron to provide any sort of argument for or against
your model, but this much I do know: make it out of carbon fiber,
charge out the wazoo for it, and somebody will buy it.

/s

Hello Carl,

Quoted message said:

The animation shows pulsing, which makes things look faintly
plausible.
But if you draw a continuous line to show the path of a steady
airstream, you'll see that the airstream crosses itself.

Yes, this would be the main intention of the device. In a worse case
scenario the animation should merely serve as an inspiration for the
negative drag topic.

I think it's an old but exiting topic.

Quoted message said:

Perpetual motion is still just Paganini:

Nice video but I have to disagree with your interpretation. Perpetual
motion in the physics sense there of is not possible because physics
assumes closed systems.

This assumption helps create good math but it's not very realistic.
Accelerating a mass with negative drag doesn't sound plausible in a
closed system.

But with some wind it becomes very realistic.

Using extremely novel electronics you can capture radio waves and turn
them into useful electricity. This radio can be tuned to cosmic radio
stations that will continue to broadcast long after the milky way has
been destroyed and forgotten about.

I just love the concept of machines that run forever without looking
after them. I know it's not a reality but it's still impressive how
far we actually got.

Cornelis Drebbel, who invented the submarine was granted a patent in
1598 for a machine that told the time, date, and season. The gold
machine was mounted in a globe on pillars and was powered by changes
in air pressure a sealed glass tub with liquid varied in volume
through atmospheric pressure changes.

James Cox and John Joseph Merlin build the Cox's timepiece around
1760. The device is powered from changes in atmospheric pressure via a
mercury barometer. The driving barometer contains 68 kilograms (150
pounds) of mercury. The clock is designed to enable the timepiece to
run indefinitely and overwinding is prevented by a safety mechanism.
The prime mover, encased in a finely detailed clock body, is a Fortin
mercury barometer.

Arthur Beverly build the Beverly Clock in 1864. The clock has been
running continuously since its construction. The mechanism is driven
by variations in atmospheric pressure and by daily temperature
variations. Either cause the air in a one cubic-foot air-tight box to
expand and contract, pushing on a diaphragm. A six-degree Celsius
temperature variation over the course of each day creates enough
pressure to raise a one-pound weight by one inch or 11 joules.

Jaeger LeCoulter created the Atmos, a modern clock powered by the same
principle as the Beverly Clock and Cox's clock. A mixture of gas and
liquid (ethyl chloride) expands as the temperature rises and
compresses a spring. For two days operation a temperature variation of
one degree in the range between 15 and 30 degrees Celsius is enough.
It also uses a torsion pendulum that executes two torsional
oscillations per minute.

More then perpetual enough for me.

I think the rest of the perpetula debate is more of a "my vector is
bigger as yours" kind of thing? Is it not?

In a mechanical watch the mainspring stores the energy to operate, a
long strip of hardened and blued steel or some specialised steel
alloy, iron-nickel-chromium with the addition of cobalt- molybdenum-
beryllium and cold-rolled for hardening. Such spring on average is
about 0.05-0.2 mm thick.

A torsion pendulum rotates about the vertical axis of the wire,
spinning it, instead of swinging like a pendulum, it has a heavy disk
or wheel with 3 or 4 chrome balls on ornate spokes, hanging on the
torsion spring. The force of the twisting torsion spring reverses the
direction of rotation, so the torsion pendulum oscillates slowly,
clockwise and counterclockwise. The speed can be tuned by adjusting
the spokes with the 4 balls that act like a governor. The clock's
gears apply pulses at the top of the torsion spring to keep the wheel
going as it rotates slowly it only takes little energy. the
oscillation period changes with temperature. The closer the balls move
to the axle, the smaller the moment of inertia and the faster it will
turn.

I think 1 degree over 2 days is MUCH closer to a closed system as it
is to the real world of heat fluctuation.

Quoted message said:

The comments show that RBT threads are perfectly normal.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

What do you mean with RBT threads?

You mean the thread of the thread?

he-he

Scott Gordo said:

Quoted post said:

Hello all,

Quoted message said:

I had envisioned drawing a vortex using a big dish a tube and a small
dish.

Quoted message said:

I've made a page with an illustration here.

Quoted message said:

http://gabydewilde.googlepages.com/vortex-ram

Quoted message said:

Let me think what you hear ok?

Quoted message said:

Thank you,

Quoted message said:

gaby de wilde

I'm too much of a moron to provide any sort of argument for or against
your model, but this much I do know: make it out of carbon fiber,
charge out the wazoo for it, and somebody will buy it.

/s

ha-ha Scot.

Yes, I'm sure you are right, still it would be hard to beat Mr
Patterson.

I don't think I could fake that much testimonials claiming 80-200%
increase in mileage. As he has gifted the technology to us we should
all be able to create our own reproductions.

Then if you can see it works with your own eyes you should have no
problem selling them either. People will call you a freak and others
will say "yes but he does do 3 times the mileage per gallon" Business
will self propagate.

People claimed they wrapped one out of duck tape still having 50%
extra mpg.

The shape may not be perfect jet. It may make my design redundant but
I feel just collecting the available anomalies of this kind may give
an interesting picture to share.

I read some one build a 10 000 kg human powered pendulum.

I think it means some extra mass should not be a problem for a bike. I
understand China has 10% electrically (assisted) vehicles.

So it wont be long before a simple set of super caps + a hub motor can
be used to overcome weight acceleration problems. One could then think
about adding a large flywheel to the bike.

Everything combined would make the vehicle much faster as anything on
the road today.

It's fun to think about I think. What do you think?

____
http://gabydewilde.googlepages.com/vortex-ram

Chalo said:

Quoted message said:

On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 10:48:45 -0800 (PST), Chalo

Quoted message said:

Paul Cardinale wrote:

Quoted message said:

> gaby de wilde wrote:

Quoted message said:

> > I had envisioned drawing a vortex using a big dish a tube and a small
> > dish.

Quoted message said:

> > I've made a page with an illustration here.

Quoted message said:

> >http://gabydewilde.googlepages.com/vortex-ram

Quoted message said:

> Apparently you don't know what a vortex is.

Quoted message said:

> You seem to be trying to come up with something that has negative
> drag.

Quoted message said:

It looked to me like he was trying to do some sort of boundary layer
control. The whole thing seems counterintuitive to me, but I am often
surprised by the weirdness of aerodynamic forces and principles.

Quoted message said:

Chalo

Dear Chalo,

The animation shows pulsing, which makes things look faintly
plausible.

But if you draw a continuous line to show the path of a steady
airstream, you'll see that the airstream crosses itself.

But that assumption, and the animation, are not necessarily indicative
of how the system might work.

It might pulsate, buffet, and cause all sorts of major turbulence--
which is what I would guess from having a look at the idea. But there
remains the possibility that the thing could scoop off some of the
boundary layer, which would in turn maintain a "bubble" that more or
less mimicked a solid nose cone. If that were the case, I still don't
know why that would be better than just using a solid nose cone. And
it looks like it would be harder to get it right than to get it wrong
and end up with a Cd of >1.0.

Quoted message said:

Perpetual motion is still just Paganini

I didn't assume that the OP was attempting to design a device that
would be propelled directly into the airstream passing over it. If
that's what he was getting at, it's pretty silly.

Chalo

Dear Chalo,

Alas, my assumption appears to be dead accurate--have a peek at the
original poster's lengthy reply.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

On Tue, 04 Dec 2007 12:20:42 -0700, [email hidden] may have

Quoted message said:

The comments show that RBT threads are perfectly normal.

Upstandingly said, from a planar perspective.

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

Gavy De Wilde said:

The ram implosion wing is one of the things that makes me think
Negative drag is a most interesting topic.http://quantumgravitics.tripod.com/id3.html

"After being rejected as an XPrize contestant for an unproven Gravitic
propulsion concept and told repeatedly by the skeptics that my
technology goes against fundamental physics, I realized that I needed
a way of proving once and for all that I had a viable technology so I
decided to install the Ram-Implo-Wing onto the roof of my van.

I knew the wing was going to work but what I had no way of knowing was
that by placing the Ram-wing onto the roof of my van that it would
increase my fuel mileage 2-x above normal. After a little tweaking of
the wing I added a set of elevated wing-lets as well as special
texture (similar to the texture of golf ball) to the wing and I
obtained 3-x above my normal fuel mileage.

I don't know where to start.

My first suggestion is that you should save yourself a lot of time,
money, and trouble, and buy a kit from Mr. Patterson. Then you can
try it out and see how it works for you. If it works as claimed, then
obviously the principles are worth pursuing; if for whatever reason it
does not perform the aerodynamic trick ascribed to it, you can look
elsewhere to scratch your inventive itch.

Quoted message said:

It's pretty weird, you cant really blame people for laughing. Take
this project for example.

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/factuurexpress?p=6802

I love the soundtrack-- how telling it is that this sort of faith-
based engineering originated from a Jesus fan. Come to think of it,
those must be Jesus fans mounted all over the car!

Chalo

Doug Cimper said:

Quoted message said:

Thanks, for the keywords. "negative drag" was what I was looking for.
I read a mohawk like sail can have negative drag while driving up
wind. I imagine it to be as solid as possible and part of the body
with the body having long tail with a decrease in volume over the
length. It should be a very slim vehicle possibly adjustable to the
shoulders width for max performance, then have something like an 8
degree decrease and drive up the wind under an angle of 10 degrees.

Are there any other ways you know of to make negative drag?

Well you could start with negative air.

-----

What are you wanting this thing to do exactly?
,,,,,
If you wish to reduce the drag of a bicycle then the most common ways
that recumbent cyclists do it is by using a rigid plastic front fairing
(such as from Zzipper or Mueller Windwrap) coupled with a "body sock".
This has almost as low drag as a hard-shell body, but is much less
expensive, easier to build and not as sensitive to cross-winds (although
it can still be a handful). The lack of wind-chill has large benefits
for cold-weather riding....

Only weirdos ride bicycles like that!
See <http://www.ransbikes.com/Gallery/Archive/Sherman.htm>.

Easy to build - heck, one can sew a body sock by hand with no pattern.
(Been there, done that)

The cross-winds are not really a problem in my experience.

The sock does not provide much extra warmth (good in the summer), but if
one could find a windproof stretch fabric, the warmth increase would be
significant.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
"Localized intense suction such as tornadoes is created when temperature
differences are high enough between meeting air masses, and can impart
excessive energy onto a cyclist." - Randy Schlitter

aka Gaby de Wilde said:

...
I know before Victor Schauberger died a broken man he said "They took
everything away from me, I don't even own myself anymore" Here is just
one of the many anecdotes in his name of which there are far to much
and which include photos and witnesses of the water wizard. One day he
took on a job. Water was flowing down hill with the goal to collect it
in a basin but the water had much to much kinetic energy so it would
just wash over the basin and collapse the small dyk around it. Victor
made the downhill even steeper and used a much smaller dyk. They
laughed at him. So he stood on top of his dyk and instructed them to
open the gate. But victor created a boal shape basin with the watter
dropping straight down into it with such force it would wash back up
the hill up-against the incoming stream. He was standing next to a
wall of water. But today Victors stuff is still mostly laughed at....

Hydraulic jump?

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
"Localized intense suction such as tornadoes is created when temperature
differences are high enough between meeting air masses, and can impart
excessive energy onto a cyclist." - Randy Schlitter

Chalo said:

....
I didn't assume that the OP was attempting to design a device that
would be propelled directly into the airstream passing over it. If
that's what he was getting at, it's pretty silly.

Chalo

People assumed this was impossible for a great period of time, but it
has been solved--at least for boats. Not so much a "boat" as a
cigar-shaped bobber-type thing, with a big wind-driven propeller on top
and a small water propeller on the bottom end. It automatically faces
into, and travels against the wind--by wind power.
~

On Wed, 05 Dec 2007 04:47:35 -0600, DougC <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Chalo said:

....
I didn't assume that the OP was attempting to design a device that
would be propelled directly into the airstream passing over it. If
that's what he was getting at, it's pretty silly.

Chalo

People assumed this was impossible for a great period of time, but it
has been solved--at least for boats. Not so much a "boat" as a
cigar-shaped bobber-type thing, with a big wind-driven propeller on top
and a small water propeller on the bottom end. It automatically faces
into, and travels against the wind--by wind power.

Dear Doug,

And you can make a traveling windmill move into the wind on a track in
the same fashion, with enough wind and enough gearing between the
wind-driven propeller and the cogs driving the machine along the
track.

But there's no such "gearing" in the animation, nor is there likely to
be any.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Quoted message said:

And you can make a traveling windmill move into the wind on a track in
the same fashion, with enough wind and enough gearing between the
wind-driven propeller and the cogs driving the machine along the
track.

Hello Carl,

We can discuss it can we not? We can share our thoughts and patch our
errors.

Quoted message said:

But there's no such "gearing" in the animation, nor is there likely to
be any.

I don't want to be rude but your train of thought doesn't go anywhere.
I cant eat likelyhoods tho I wish I could. :-)

I don't see any gearing in either my vortex ram or the ram implosion
wing. Sailing also doesn't have any moving parts. It's extremely
efficient.

Cousteau's Calypso could propel it self up wind. Doug also said it has
been done already even with the gearing.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Calypso_II.png

going faster as the wind directly down the wind is also possible.

http://www.ayrs.org/DWFTTW_from_Catalyst_N23_Jan_2006.pdf

Converting drag into forwards motion is not a problem either. The
thing that makes it interesting is that the vehicle is already
compressing the air.

the vortex ram is not looking to create extra drag but it's trying to
convert this abundantly available compressed air back into forwards
motion.

The wind is moving relative to the ground so there is more potential
energy going into the system as the rider is putting into it. The drag
is normally an annoyance, driving up the wind is even worse.

We know insects use vortexi for flight. We know golf balls have
dimples. We know shark skin is smooth in one direction and sharp in
the other.

Like a pendulum a vortex only needs a pulse every now and then. I like
to think it could be made to self sustain at far smaller cost as just
pushing the air away all the time.

Insects would be using that what works best.

__________
http://gabydewilde.googlepages.com/vortex-ram