So if you put a plane on a treadmill..

[Pi Mu Rho]

Just kidding.

But, this is kind of related. And mind-blowing. Well, it blew mine. You lot can please yourselves.

 

[CptStern]

I remember watching a documentary on this or something and it worked as claimed although it took a long time to achieve the speed needed to go faster than the wind

 

[Wanted Bob]

That was a really cool article. I had no idea you could do such a thing.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

I'm a little more interested in the design of the machine, are there any details? I just see a lot of...language and simple pictures.

 

[MiccyNarc]

Awesome read, thanks for sharing.
I wonder if this has any application to aeronautics, or how it could be used.

 

[Raziaar]

Can you make a vehicle that goes directly upwind, powered only by the wind, faster than the wind?

HEY LETS NOT GET CRAZY HERE.

 

[Ennui]

I'm a little more interested in the design of the machine, are there any details? I just see a lot of...language and simple pictures.

They explain the basic mechanics of it in the article, I'm sure you can find more technical stuff about it on google.

I really enjoyed reading that article, twisted my brain around quite a bit. I still don't quite get it.

 

[Raziaar]

They explain the basic mechanics of it in the article, I'm sure you can find more technical stuff about it on google.

I really enjoyed reading that article, twisted my brain around quite a bit. I still don't quite get it.

I don't either really. I only briefly glanced at the description of how it works.

Are they saying that the wind drives the propeller which moves the car... and the wheels in motion feed back into the propeller which causes it to even faster, allowing the speeds of the propeller to be faster than that of the wind alone which gives it even more thrust potential?

I dunno.

 

[kazsymonds]

The wind drives the propeller which drives the wheels.

As the vehicle picks up speed, the propeller is driven faster and the vehicle moves faster.

It seems like it has something to do with the momentum and mass of the vehicle itself, by there's no way my brain can model it...

 

[Eejit]

I don't either really. I only briefly glanced at the description of how it works.

Are they saying that the wind drives the propeller which moves the car... and the wheels in motion feed back into the propeller which causes it to even faster, allowing the speeds of the propeller to be faster than that of the wind alone which gives it even more thrust potential?

I dunno.

I think that as the wheels move faster they drag on the propellor with that chain, trying to slow it at the same time as the wind continues to try and push on them at the same speed.

 

[Maestro]

Derp. Didn't see part of the article. Ignore this.

 

[ríomhaire]

If you throw 0.999... cats of the Eiffel Tower...

 

[Dan]

Another way to wrap your head around it is to imagine two infinitely long gear racks with some relative motion in between them. The ground would be the bottom gear rack and the wind would be the top gear rack. If you grab onto either gear rack with a gear of your own, and connect them by a gear ratio, you can move a car in the space between the racks faster than the relative motion between the racks.

 

[Krynn72]

You can also think of it like this. If your mom has a nice gear rack and I put my gear rack in the space between her gears then my gears well move faster and faster in a back and forth motion until a maximum momentum is reached, and then... Well you get the rest of the joke.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

mind-blowing

What you did there: I see it.

Just for the record, I was one of the people who believed this would work.