NACA Duct

Much erudite safety discussion between Senior Chief Scientifick Advisor (me, obv.) and Office Junior (Mr R G Knight Esq.):


Numero un. I'm sort of nearly finishing my foam affair, and want to reiterate that it feels really weird riding a machine where you can't see your feet. So if the NACA duct is still in the planning stages I want to say a word in support of making it big enough to peep through and satisfy your curiosity from time to time as to the number of teeth on your chainring. - R

1) yes I agree. I'll see what I can arrange with the duct when I come to do it. Possibly make the base of the duct from clear to give a line of sight down inside the fairing, ha, to see a computer as well. - Bob

Numero deux. Much worried by your spinning out at 64kph. That's 40mph. It is possible that you'll be able to hold higher speeds on the boring oval of Trafalgar park than on the open roads. What d'you think the possibility is of riding over 40 miles in this hour attempt? -R

2) not much I can do about that now. to be honest the thought of cornering at 64kph scares the willies out of me. I have nowhere to practise controlled cornering around here. I have tried to measure the radius of Trafalgar Park on google and compare with known corners around here but the corners on the roads here are not as tight. - Bob

Numero three because I can't remember the French. Hang on, Trois. When (sic.) you fall off at 40 mph, what will happen to the corriboard skin? Will it melt in short order and add excruciating pain to the scraped flesh? I know that foam has a very good protective effect when falling off at 25 mph because I very kindly performed this experiment some years ago. (Wet leaves. Sharp corner. Exuberant riding.) Rob English told me the Kevlar protected him when he went down at Battle Mountain. I can't imagine you'll want to be wearing sharkskins inside the fairing. - R

3) Corriboard is meant to be OK in a crash, but the skin will only be 3mm and possibly not even that where my arms are. Crashing also scares the willies out of me. Having crashed once before at 35mph I have no wish to do it again. I watched the Battle mountain crash on you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5Dapy1xUq0 and the kids and Steph saw it. We were a bit quite for a while. - Bob

Numero four. Quatre I mean. There is a great big long thing in front of the front wheel pivot. Andreas Fuchs
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:8Blmlu8pL2MJ:www.whpva.org/tools/cwind_stat_stab.doc+andreas+fuchs+trim+of+aerodynamicall&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk
warns us of flat sides wh. are esp. vulnerable to sidewinds. Great lengths of bodywork forward of the front wheel are also likely to make the thing sensitive to sidewinds. Ergo, is there somewhere/somewhen you can practise where there isn't any wind? Traf Park should be okay in the early morning for the run; I'm concerned about pre-race practice. - R

4) If I find the thing a handful, I'll just stop. Simple as that, I'm not risking my neck when I can do it again another day. - Bob

Numero five. (Bother. Cinq.) Foam for the arm-hole slits? - R

5) yes , I can envisage exactly that, I think it could work quite well. The pressure and lack of time on this is causing me much anquish. I do not like to operate under these condition. - Bob

Anyway, I was glad to see the duct appear, as it did, when the top planking started to get done.