The Exterior Venturi Motorcycle Streamliner
The motorcycle
Streamliner record is one of the toughest records to break. That is why it
stands at 322 miles per hour and the wheel driven car record is 100 miles
per hour faster. The biggest problem with motorcycle streamliners"
MS" is stability. They are constantly wobbling down the course as they
are accelerating and the reason is because the rider is on his back and his
weight is small when compared to the weight of the MS ( some are as much as
2,500 lbs.) he cannot put body english on the bike to control it's weaving.
What he can do is high side the front tire and keep the bike balancing on the
wheel contact patches. With the help of self aligning torque added by flexible
tires (guys who run billet metal wheels amaze me with their logic!) he can
keep the bike barely under control. Pretty much riding a MS is your worst white
knuckled nightmare. Riders have looked to aerodynamic help to steady their
bikes by using rear tail fins. these are a horrible idea because side winds
weather cock or spin the bike off of it's contact patches hindering control.
In a perfect world bikes would perform like they do in a wind tunnel with all
the air coming from one direction. This is fantasy though as any MS rider will
tell you.
I propose
a bike liner with a tapered mid section with fences or strakes at 90 degrees
around the body in line with the air flow. As air passes around this MS it
is accelerated by the taper or venturi section of the body so it has more
force. It is at this time held in position by the fences or strakes. Shown
on the model in red. This mid section contains the center of gravity of the
MS so the venturi acts like a big hand stabilizing the bike in the axis of
roll and yaw. On a MS roll is yaw so the bike will go straighter without
allot of junk hanging out in the breeze to disturb the airflow. On the nose
of this MS is an aero spike to get the air moving ahead of the liner. The
aero spike projects out from the center of a small hole that takes the turbulent
air from the spike and feeds it to the engine. This MS is powered by a T-58
gas turbine of 1,200 horse power driving both wheels. The engine is located
at the Cg (in the venturi) and the exhaust gasses are expelled at the rear
and behind the rear wheel. The rider sits over the rear wheel. The wheels
could theoretically be made from a machined billet of spring steel with the
tire being having a series of deep grooves machined into it allowing the
spring steel to flex at the same rate of a rubber tire. This would give the
badly needed self aligning torque to stand the MS up. 5 square feet of frontal
area, .15 Cd, 1,500 lbs. over all and 500 mph here we come........Waldo