Project Land Speed: Explaining the power of the pod
by Sail-World.com/nz 30 Jul 2022 14:47 UTC
31 July 2022
Project Speed - Horonuku is pushed out of the RNZAF Hangar - Emirates Team New Zealand - Test run - Whenuapai -May 20, © Richard Gladwell / Sail-World.com
Emirates Team New Zealand's Tim Meldrum explains how the pod is used on Horonuku to optimise weight carried depending on the windspeed.
The land yacht will need to exceed 202.9km/hr or 110kts for a three second period to break the 13yr old windpowered landspeed record that has stood for 13years.
"The pod is like our keel on a yacht. It's a pile of mass out on a long lever that creates what we call the righting moment."
"We can vary the amount of lead in that pod, anywhere from 300 kilos up to about 1.1 tonnes."
"The sweet spot would be if you could fly the wheel 50 millimetres off the ground without touching at all, " explains the Mechanical Engineer.
The Project Landspeed team is still waiting for Lake Gairdner in South Australia to dry sufficiently to put up the hard salt pan necessary for the record, which must be set on a natiral surface.
Full NALSA regulations for speed record attempts can be read nalsa.org/Sept_News/spdreg.html