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why wasnt the March 701 the ground breaker?

Started by cheapracer , Nov 14 2007 06:57

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14 replies to this topic

#1 cheapracer

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Posted 14 November 2007 - 06:57

http://www.pbase.com.../image/20939155

In my mind the March 701 was the first reverse wing ground effects car, why didnt it work when it (looks like it) should have had a downforce advantage?

Aero experts care to chime in please....

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#2 cheapracer

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Posted 14 November 2007 - 06:58

and here..

http://www.ultimatec...id=527109509614

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#3 Juise

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Posted 14 November 2007 - 07:17

The shape of the "wing" is perfectly ok, but the problem was that the design leaked pressure as the area under them is open to surrounding air.

The reason why skirts were invented was to "seal" the car underside to the ground and make a "tunnel" under the car. Then the wign shape would have created underpressure to the "tunnel" and this underpressure was the thing that sucked the car to the track.

Without skirts the wing shape tries to do the right thing but air leaks to ruin everything.

Someone will hopefully post pictures and explain this in native english speaking words...

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#4 Greg Locock

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Posted 14 November 2007 - 11:56

Your explanation was fine.

My guess is that it was 'obvious' that some sort of sliding skirt wouldn't live long enough, and that you couldn't lock the suspension down so that a non sliding skirt would be effective.

As it happens, both arguments were wrong, but that is 20/20 hindsight.

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#5 Juise

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Posted 14 November 2007 - 12:17

Actually McLaren tried some skirts back in 1974 in Dijon-Prenois to prevent the air leaking to the underside of the car and thus creating aerodynamic lift.

The problem was that the skirts were plastic so they disintegrated after the first contact to the tarmac... so they never saw the effects and never realized the potential of skirts back then.

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#6 imaginesix

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Posted 14 November 2007 - 15:07

It doesn't look to me like they had GE downforce in mind when they came up with that sidepod (did they even know what GE downforce was?). It looks like the idea was simply inspired from an inverted wing, and it was probably meant to work the same way except that the span is far too small for the chord so any pressure differential on the top or bottom spills over into the nearby free-flowing air stream and results in almost null downforce.

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#7 scarbs

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Posted 14 November 2007 - 15:47

The March rightly wasn’t referred to as the ground breaker, in fact the Lotus 78 wasn’t either. In fact the first wing car was a BRM project as far back as the sixties (1968-9). The two top men at BRM at the time were Peter Wright (later to be at March and Lotus) and chassis designer Alex Osborne, togetther they created a wind tunnel model and a prototype car based on a full length wing profile. Just as the March sidepod was a simple add on, the BRM project was preceded by a March like sidepod add-on (1968). But the true Wing car was the P139, designed ground up to minimise the chassis cross section and maximise the underbody (wing) width. The project did produce positive results in the tunnel, not withstanding the lack of much needed side skirts, only later to be discovered as the missing link by Wright in 77-78 (ten years later…!). Internal politicking stopped the car making it out onto the track and the prototype was broken up.

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#8 DOHC

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Posted 14 November 2007 - 17:00

Was Tony Rudd involved in that project too?

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#9 scarbs

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Posted 14 November 2007 - 17:04

Yes, it was Rudd that both initiated the secret build of the model and the prototype, then after John Surtees kicked up a fuss, Louis Stanley cancelled the project.

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#10 phantom II

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Posted 14 November 2007 - 18:42

In this forum someone posted a picture of a 1914 Opel with wings a few years back. I copied it into MS Word including picture as I have done with many comments from this BB, but this is all I could extract below. I dont know how to save the picture(2) but Im looking at them as I type. It looks like a 50s race car with airplane wings sticking out the sides. Would make passing interesting. The wings arent even inverted, they just have a negative A of A.

"First use of wings on a car.

The idea of attaching wings to an automobile can be credited to the Curtiss Aeroplane Company with the Aerocar. 1917...
http://www.museumoff.../autoplane.html

Originally posted by scarbs
In fact the first wing car was a BRM project as far back as the sixties (1968-9).

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#11 cheapracer

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Posted 15 November 2007 - 07:40

Originally posted by scarbs
The March rightly wasn’t referred to as the ground breaker, in fact the Lotus 78 wasn’t either. In fact the first wing car was a BRM project as far back as the sixties (1968-9).

No I'm sure Da Vinci drew something too and that in fact was the first.

No track time, doesnt rate.

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#12 SWB

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Posted 15 November 2007 - 23:11

I would have thought the pre war Mercedes T80 record car was the first car to accomodate surface mounted wings AND a partial underbody venturi, with 'skirts'.

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#13 murpia

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Posted 16 November 2007 - 10:44

Originally posted by phantom II
In this forum someone posted a picture of a 1914 Opel with wings a few years back. ... It looks like a 50s race car with airplane wings sticking out the sides. Would make passing interesting. The wings arent even inverted, they just have a negative A of A.

I remember this rocket powered 1928 Opel from a set of 'Top Trumps' in the 70s...

Posted Image