• sparkyshocks@lemmy.zip
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      23 hours ago

      If humans can hang glide I don’t see why we couldn’t use those aerodynamic principles to try to glide a car hooked up to glider wings. It’s a real engineering challenge, but I feel like it would be possible to get some distance in a scenario where a car uses its wheels to go fast, drives off a cliff, deploys some kind of glider wings (or drive with the glider wings timed out to where the car gets to the cliff edge right at the point where the wings plus updraft provide enough lift) to get the vehicle to glide a substantial distance.

      Seems horribly dangerous but not impossible.

      • fizzle@quokk.au
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        11 hours ago

        Is there a lift vs drag problem that precludes making a glider with such a heavy payload? It might not be as simple as bigger wings to support the heavier weight.