4 ms·
It's not trivial to me. You can put one of these things on a treadmill, and it'll outrun the treadmill!
by alecst 5y ago
It's not trivial to me. You can put one of these things on a treadmill, and it'll outrun the treadmill!
- tyingq 5y agoI just don't get why it's confusing. The wind creates basically a fixed RPM motor (assuming constant wind speed) with some amount of power. If that power is great enough, you drive the wheels through some amount of gearing to get the speed you want. Like that a bicycle wheel travels farther in one revolution than the circumference of the circle of where the pedals are.
- fallingfrog 5y agoNo, it’s the other way around: the wheels are driving the propeller at the front of the vehicle. And it can outrun the wind. If the turbine at the front of the craft was driving the wheels, it would stop working when it got up to the speed of the wind (since the wind speed relative to the craft is zero at that speed)