I think you are referring to MDI? They haven't manufactured a single production vehicle, despite 10 years of press releases. They have got rather a lot of ignorant investor's money.

Why would the oil companies give a monkey's about air cars? The thermodynamics proving that they are hopelessly inefficient is covered in the first year of an engineering degree, at least in the UK.

The early stories were reprints by mouth breathers, of the press releases issued by a company desperate for investor's funds.

Yes, if you compress air carefully and keep it at the temperature to which it rises (very hot indeed), and then decompress it carefully, you can make it quite efficient. BUT your range will suffer a lot, as the mass of air that can be stored is then much smaller.

Hey here's a goddamn excellent idea, while we're at it why not get techies to teach English?

Man, I wonder if the little dude sprained his elbow while he patted himself on the back.

Some days I play Solitaire, other days I play Risk. Neither defines /me/. At work I solve Hamiltonians, and struggle to add budgets up. Neither defines me.

I forgot to add that the rules are almost certainly fudged to encourage alternative technologies.

The wingspan limit makes achieving a 50:1 L/D very difficult - I'm not an aerodynamicist. However once the L/D drops to 30:1 then its game over man.

L/D for a really good plane 50:1

plane weighs roughly 4 times as much as the passengers (proabbly lowball)

passenger weighs 80 kg

speed=100 miph=160 kph=50 m/s

so constant power required=1/50*(4*80)*10*50=3200W

Best engine efficiency ~40%, best prop ~80%, calorific content of fuel is 38 MJ/kg= .8*4*38 MJ/gallon, so fuel consumption is 3200/(.32*3.2*38*10^6) gallons per second. So in 2 hours there are 7200 seconds, so ttoal fuel used is 3200/(.32*3.2*38*10^6)*7200

So, that is 0.6 gallons for 200 miles for one passenger

Conclusion, probably do-able, it'll cost way more than 1.5 million

FYI?

WTF?

You are wrong. The 'new' Fiesta is built on a Mazda 2 platform.

Aurora's 20 year old solar car Christine hit 60 mph at Hidden Valley year before last.

And Aurora's aerodynamic cars have been doing >60 mph on solar alone since 1996. The record is way higher than that.

The Cambridge car is likely to be yet another inept entry from the UK. Still, it is a nice holiday. Gives them a chance to burn their pasty white pustulous skins.

I agree it is not a perfect report, but some of your criticism is over the top.

The Volt will only use 55% of its battery capacity, the Prius typically uses only 20% (by preference), etc etc. This is in order to get a respectable number of cycles from the battery.

I thought they explained their electric motor sizing rationale very well. Perhaps you need to re read it.

They also, as you say, investigate structural efficiency so I'm not quite sure why you are criticising that.

For various values of 'THAT'. Our shocks weigh 4 kg a pop, a 20 kg shock would add ~20% to the unsprung mass. I am sure that as an aspiring vehicle dynamicist you will recoil with horror from that thought.

Seconded. v3 is entirely usable and stable, the new graphics engine is a step forward as well. It also handles large (1000x1000, ok I know that isn't especially big) matrices gracefully. It is not as pretty as Matlab, but they are working on a pretty front end.

If he is breathing via a snorkel (I suspect a 2m long snorkel is going to be very hard work) then he won't get bends as he will be at atmospheric pressure, internally. He also says he's going to surface every night, so his maximum exposure is only one day.

Yes it was. Douche.

I agree. That is why I didn't type "production cars". You idiot.

"M grasp of physics is pretty incorrect here."

60 mph=27 m/s

a=v/t=27/5=5.4
F=m.a=907*5.4=4.9 kN (so you got that bit right)

Power=F*v (instantaneously) so at 60

Power=4900*27=132 kW=177 hp