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offgrid View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: Tow Vehicle Recommendation?
    Posted: 09 Nov 2018 at 3:46pm
lostagain, I never said that a sail shaped travel trailer would be practical, but it would be easy to change from port to starboard tack to address a wind shift, just retract one slide and extend the other one. 

If you're on the southeast coast in the summer, you could just wait for a tropical storm to make your move, depending on where the eye was you could go in any direction, or even go around in a circle if you wanted to. Probably could go pretty fast too, for a little while...

I believe we just participated in another round of the dreaded thread drift...
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lostagain View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2018 at 4:01pm
Much of the discussion in this thread has addressed the issue of mileage, to which I thoughtfully added that one could arrange one's travel down wind to avoid the dreaded up wind trips.  The use of a sail's airfoil was a logical extension of the concept, though a bit impractical.  Thus, we have come full circle back to fuel economy depending on wind direction.  Certainly, to the extent the topic was driven in one direction or another by the wind, one could accurately call it drift, the circular motion of the wind brought us right back to the topic.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2018 at 4:17pm
10-4.

And just to cement the notion that we are back on topic, I'll include here an excellent online tool for calculating fuel economy where you can load in your numbers and see the impact of aero drag. I put in .01 for rolling resistance, 8600 lbs wt, left the drag coefficient at 0.34, and plugged in 47 ft2 for frontal area. Left all the other inputs as is.

Comes out very close to my actual numbers. You can see to what extent aero drag on the trailer controls fuel economy. All you have to do to get 18 mpg is drive 50 mph (or have about a 20-25 mph tailwind).  

https://ecomodder.com/forum/tool-aero-rolling-resistance.php
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2018 at 4:41pm
I once used ( but only once ) used 12.2 litres per 100 km, that is 19.3 miles per US gallon with a 30 miles an hour tail wind. So that means I defied Murphy's Law once.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2018 at 4:48pm
I did get 18 mpg with a 25 mph tailwind once as well, so that's 2 Murphy anomalies...Happened to be the day I first brought the trailer home, so for a short time I had a very unrealistic idea of what I could expect. I was quickly dissuaded however as Murphy raised his head quickly after that. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 Nov 2018 at 6:16pm
So, in the last analysis, mileage isn't entirely the quality and capacity of the TV, the original topic, but a function of swirling air masses galloping around the planet.

And sorry Marwayne and offgrid, you didn't pull a fast one on my cousin Murphy.  You only addressed the first two elements of the law, which is incomplete.  What can go wrong, will go wrong at the worst possible moment.  Each of you lacked the element of "worst possible moment."  Thus Murphy is still waiting patiently for the proper combination of the three elements of the law.  And he will strike with out warning.  You probably had plenty of gas stations along the way, plenty of cash in your pockets or a hefty credit card limit, and/or agreeable weather making it a lousy time to impose the effects of the first two elements of the law.Disapprove
Never leave footprints behind.
Fred & Maria Kearney
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Our Pod 172
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