When explorers set out from Europe to find a passage to the Far East, they were pushed their by source of ceaseless power: the wind.
Today, wind power is often tapped from stationary structures-- windmills -- to power stationary buildings. But a group is out to prove that wind could power a moving vehicle -- and push it faster than the wind is blowing.
If it seems counter-intuitive, you're not alone. Many scientists dismiss the idea as fantasy, most believing the wind could not push a vehicle faster than the wind is moving, as that would border on perpetual motion.
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The idea of a wind-powered car is nothing new. Back in the 1960s, Douglas Aircraft engineer Andrew Bauer allegedly created a working prototype of a "directly downwind faster than the wind," or DDWFTTW, vehicle. However, no official records exist exploring whether it was faster than the wind.
Today, engineer Richard Jenkins dreams of creating a vehicle that does just that and hopes to set a land-speed record.
Recently, Jenkins and his team constructed a sophisticated and futuristic wind-powered vehicle based on familiar aeronautical, sailing and wind technology principles. The craft is called the Greenbird and uses efficient wings much like those on an aircraft, but rather than lifting the vehicle off the ground, they push the car forward.
There are two crafts, one for flat ground and another for ice. According to their website, the "vehicles are designed and optimized to respond to, and take advantage of, each surface."
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The crafts are meticulously designed, tested and tweaked to get maximum efficiency out of the wing-like sails. As the wings accelerate the vehicle, other wings use the same wind to press the car toward the ground. Thanks to these others wings, at full speed, the 1,320 lb car weighs over a ton -- keeping it firmly to the track.
In March 2009 at America's cup landsailing regatta, the Greenbird set a new world land speed record for wind powered vehicles of 126.2 mph. The wind was blowing closer to 30 mph.
Jenkins' Greenbird is not the only DDWFTTW project. In fact, Rick Cavallaro and John Borton of Thin Air Designs have a similar mission, but different execution. Based on the 1960s Douglas design, they used a propeller to move the wheels and maximized the efficiency available on the other parts creating a Formula 1-style vehicle with an awkward-looking propeller on the top.
The craft, named the Blackbird isn't being pulled along by the propeller however.
"Skeptics think that the wind is turning the prop, and the car is turning the wheels, and that’s what makes the car go," Cavallaro said. "That’s not the case. The wheels are turning the prop. What happens is the prop thrust pushes the vehicle."
Based on this description, you can see how people would be confused. The wind turns the prop, the prop transfers that energy to the wheels and the prop thrust pushes the vehicle. It may seem like a perpetual motion machine, but it's not -- the wind is the "engine."
Additionally, the propeller is not like an airplane propeller, but reversed. Rather than the pulling the car through the air, the propeller surfaces catch the wind and turn the wheels. Using the Blackbird, Cavallaro and his team "established a world record by going directly downwind at 2.8 times the true wind speed with the Blackbird," in July 2010.
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Their next mission? To "modify the Blackbird with the intention of going directly UP-wind faster than the wind" They'll have a whole new batch of skeptics, but it seems the idea of a car traveling significantly faster than the wind pushing it, isn't a dream anymore.
Read more about these DDWFTTW projects on the two projects blogs: Greenbird, Ride Like the Wind (only faster).
Images: Greenbird, Ride Like the Wind (only faster)
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