Eric Ahlstrom wrote:
Paul,
So you re-designed the link in 1967 based on a drawing Breedlove showed you,
do you know who the original designer was?  Craig vaguely mentioned that
"some GE engineer" came up with the focusing link for the original SOA.  It
was 1962, they had not put the vertical fin on yet, and the "steering via
differential braking" was not working.

On the link design, I can see the need for having vertical, horizontal, and
steering link all connected to the swing arm in the same plane.  I
understand all the focal angles, although I tend to use motorcycle terms
like trail instead of caster.   What I was asking before is what effect does
the forward vs. aft tilt of the vertical links have?

Eric Ahlstrom
President, Star Aerospace LLC


I don't know. Perhaps you can find Margie Smith and ask her.
I searched a bit on the Internet and I could not find her.
She was there before I was and was making complete drawings.
There were several fabricators working in the shop building the car.
Margie and I shared an office upstairs in the Torrance shop
not far from the airport. Craig attended an AIAA
forum where I had presnted a tech paper. He hired me to do the
aero and some of the other mechanical design. We worked with
Halibrand and Arrow gear to build the rear drive axle. So
I plotted the laminar flow airfoils for the wheel pants
and the two rear wings and suggested a canard for the front lift
proplem.

I suspect the reason it crashed was it lost rear down force
and rear lateral side area when Craig decided to remove the
wheel pants and wings to save weight.

Paul Lamar