Quote:
Originally posted by socalpunx:
If air speed over the wings is required for flight then why have F1 and Indy cars been airborne
F1 and Indy cars have wings.

HOWEVER. As the case with Johnny Rutherford a number of years ago flipping his car after it took off - the bottom of an Indy car is completely flat. It already had forward momentum. The car was NOT at a right angle - it was at an acute angle to the ground. The car's bottom pushed against the wind - the opposite force of the air pushed the car UP and over.

Quote:
and why is a primary concern for land speed attempts maintaining enough downforce at speed to prevent the vehicle from achieving flight.
Look at the shape of it. The air is forced into a smaller area underneath. It will force the car up.

If that car was on a conveyor belt, and that conveyor belt didn't move ANY air underneath - it would not lift.
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"Nature has constituted utility to man the standard and test of virtue. Men living in different countries, under different circumstances, different habits and regimens, may have different utilities; the same act, therefore, may be useful and consequently virtuous in one country which is injurious and vicious in another differently circumstanced" - Thomas Jefferson, moral relativist