Dimpled rear wing
 

Hi all
Mate of mine has just bought a second hand xb4 he showed me a picture of it and I noticed it's got a strange rear wing !
It's got dimples either side of the mounting holes on the flat section of the wing , anyone know who makes them and what benefits would such a design make ( if any ?? )

Cheers Graham

This topic might be of interest for you... :) Scroll down and I think you'll find the wing you're referring to (Upgrade RC Vortex 10).

http://www.oople.com/forums/showthread.php?t=142138

Thank you , yes that's the one , suppose it acts like the surface of a golf ball to aid aerodynamics ??

Here's a good thread about it. Seems even ferarri even tried it out.
http://www.petitrc.com/_forumphp/sho...es-reduce-drag

On the golf balls it reduces drag so maybe it would work on a rear wing.
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/Files/...rts_img043.jpg

i believe the wing your referencing is the Upgrade wing

http://www.cmldistribution.co.uk/cml...tId=0000007560

The has been a lot of work done on this in the aerospace industry too.
Even to the level of actually feeding air to the flight surfaces through thousands of little angled holes. Rather than just using dimples (think dimples stop working at higher speeds).
Works quite well, but costs a fortune!

http://www.cmldistribution.co.uk/cml...tId=0000007560

So has anyone used this rear wing?? Does it make a difference?

I know they were laying up hi-end power boats with little graphite pockets that could be cleaned out later that left a dimpled finish. Supposedly they do go much faster. :thumbsup:

Cant remember which but the Hurricane or Spitfire had some tests done where they re-done the rivets so they were flush with the skin of the plane. Supposedly to reduce drag, problem was, it was actually slower like that and stayed so until they glued lentils where the rivet heads were. :thumbdown:

Yes.....Lentils! :confused:

There must be something in it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR5SlwNf4K0

Worth a try on an RC wing :lol:

also Zipp have done this on their firecrest wheels

Does it actually work though on the track.
quite a few years ago there was test done with a 1/10th Nitro TC by one of the top drivers with the Protoform touring car wing, these have the lines to cut out panels at the base of the wing (in fact they still do!), very much like the Schumacher Areo wing

The test was with the with cutouts & without, full timing & changing wings regularly to get the best decision.

The result no difference in lap times and according to the driver no difference in feel.

So is it all in the mind ;)

Quite a few decades (!) ago Keith Plestead (Mr. PB Racing) did a test with a rear wing shaped like an aerofoil to create more downforce at the rear. It didn't work! The car was very loose at the rear and difficult to drive.

Keith concluded that all the rear 'wing' on a model car is doing is creating drag behind the centre of pressure to stabilise the car. As the Veyron and McLaren F1 have a wing that pops up under braking to do exactly that, it seems like a logical conclusion.

Dimples also feature on TdF cyclists suits to reduce drag, so there must be something in it. It seems reasonable to assume that the areas of surfaces we have are too small and the speeds we go at too low for any of these things to have a noticeable effect.

The issue is that the air flow is to dirty and to slow over the rear wing for it to be no more than a crude spoiler, that disrupts disrupts airflow and causes downforce, nothing more than that. We can talk laminar air etc but you need a reasonably clean airflow to creater that.

.... need to go faster :thumbsup::confused: