Education A wind-powered car which travels faster than the wind!

Thermodynamics, its a bitch.

Sail powered vehicles (Boats, land yachts etc) travel faster than the wind but only in directions that aren't directly downwind by using the apparent wind caused by the combination of the wind and their motion. I'm not sure about this but I think they can only do it when travelling into the wind or across it, not downwind.

Moriquendi

 

anyone who says it's useless definitely doesn't get it...

 

And then stick that treadmill on a car powered by wind... on a treadmill...

 

To which ever mod that changed the title thank you. I wrote it when half asleep and in the morning when I remember what I had written I logged on to change it myself and found it fixed.

I should have stated it was on dead downwind run. On a reach yes it is relatively simple to go faster then the wind but on a dead run it isn't. The thing with this is a lot of people don't think it is possible because their intuition says that it can't travel faster then what is pushing it.

Not all that controversial but interesting at least for engineering geeks.

The wind doesn't turn the blades, it pushes the vehicle forward and the wheels turn the blades which create thrust increasing the speed... and so on.

Aye modern sailing boats (the ones high aspect ratio sails) travel fastest on a reach (depending on the boat it could be a beam reach or board reach) and the apparent wind can be vastly different from the actual wind direction.