Blackbird cart runs with wind only twice as fast
Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 12:00
in Physics & Chemistry
(Phys.org) -- This months news-making word in wind-powered vehicle experiments is upwind. Blackbird, a wind powered cart, has shown it can travel upwind at more than twice the speed of circulating air. Rick Cavallaro, an aerodynamicist focused on designing record-setting vehicles that challenge wind speed, first made news two years ago when his Blackbird vehicle raced downwind at 2.86 times the speed of the wind. This time, after modifying his cart, he and his Blackbird team went out to the New Jerusalem airport in Tracy, California, where the vehicle achieved a top speed 2.01 times faster than the wind speed when headed upwind.