Hijacking this thread, to get back to sailing/F-16's
Wouter wrote about sheeting and mainsail trim earlier, and how he did not sheet the main as hard as some F-18 crews. I came over an article visualizing what happens when oversheeting.
Ref:
http://syr.stanford.edu/SAILFLOW.HTMLook for the headline: "What Does This Tell Us About Sailing?"
They did not include a jib in their illustration, but its quite easy to see what happens anyway. If their figures are correct, having a long leach-telltale/ribbon will not be precise enough to warn you before you have badly overtrimmed the main?
I think I am going to put some more telltales on my main at 2/3s height, and observe for myself what happens.
We often struggle to get the front windward telltales on the main to fly properly. I read somwhere that 20% of the sails power comes from the windward side. Does anybody have any real-life experiences to share on this? Trim for the leeward side, or flatten the sail/rotation and get both sides flying (we feel that this gives less power and height when beating)
The rest of the article, about CFD and sails are worth reading as well.
