Going Faster Than the Wind In a Wind-Powered Cart

Shawnconna writes "Can a wind cart travel faster than the wind? A group of makers say, 'Yes!' Make: Online has published a story about the Blackbird wind cart that just set a record. This is a follow-up to an earlier story in which Charles Platt built a cart based on a viral video where a guy claimed he'd built a wind-powered vehicle that could travel downwind faster than the windspeed. Charles built one and said it didn't work. Heated debates broke out in forums, on BB, and elsewhere on the Net. In the ensuing time, a number of people have built carts and claimed success, most principally, Rick Cavallaro. He got funding from Google and JOBY to build and test a human-piloted cart. They claim success, with multiple sensor systems on board, impartial judges and experts in attendance."

Comments

nonsense

[frovingslosh]

A claim like this requires some explanation of how it could be done, and such an explanation is obviously missing from the article. You shouldn't try to make up explanations for them (although that is how this nonsense continues to thrive).

Other than a claim of "we did it" I see nothing to support the claim or any explanation of how on earth this could actually work. But I do see the acknowledgment that "If you ride your bike downwind at exactly wind speed you won't feel any wind either." . What this admits, at least to me, is that if such a wind powered vehicle did manage to make it all the way to the speed of the wind, then it would no longer "feel" any wind effect on it. With no wind effect on it, it would be unable to go any faster (and in a world with friction it wouldn't even get that fast). So the article claims it was done, but also gives good reason to believe that it can't be done and no argument for why it could be done.

Or to put it another way, if this thing can go through the point where it is going at the speed of the wind to then go faster than the wind the, assuming that it isn't storing energy from some time in the past and that the wind doesn't slow down, then it could also sit in zero mph wind and start going forward all by itself, just powered by a zero mph (non-existent) wind. Perhaps you believe that. I don't.