pro's and cons

[hawkwind]

what are the pros and cons of  ,rear,cntr and front  driver positions in stream liners ,
Gary  clueless in oz

[1212FBGS]

well if its a jet powered liner you'll probably want to set in the front....

[JackD]

Did Kent get up early or stay up late ?

A vehicle that puts the driver last in the chain of events will have the advantage of the best line of sight and driver feel.
The down side is that all the inside fluids that can go outside in case of a failure tend to want to go into your path of vision.

A driver in the center has just less visual reference as to the position of the vehicle and the problems related to the power plant in the front or the rear will be the same either way.

If the driver is the first thing down the road, they have the least ability to sight down the vehicle and is subject to be the last to know if they are out of shape.

A front position bike liner actually has some advantage over an equally placed car operator because they have the lean angle in relation to the horizon as an additional visual clue.

Isolation of the driver via fire wall and fresh air are all equally important with challenges that are often misunderstood and overlooked.
 

[1212FBGS]

had to take the dog out to pee... goin back to bed...you should 2 mr smarty pants

[Speed Limit 1000]

Jack, You still up drinking, or just too old to waste your life sleeping.

[JackD]

Jack, You still up drinking, or just too old to waste your life sleeping.

Well I don't drink and my time is my own.  LOL

[Richard Thomason]

I believe that Jack has hit all the salient points with respect to driver position. You pays your money and takes your choice. Just don't underestimate the difficulty of driving. it's not as easy as it would seem.

[tortoise]

On the other hand, the lowest drag airfoil shape is widest near the front, narrowing to the rear. If the cockpit is the widest part of the vehicle, and arguably it should be, it should be nearer the front. Cars with the driver ahead of the front wheels are really spooky, though.

[JackD]

A good place to start is to find the narrowest driver. LOL

[sockjohn]

On the other hand, the lowest drag airfoil shape is widest near the front, narrowing to the rear. If the cockpit is the widest part of the vehicle, and arguably it should be, it should be nearer the front. Cars with the driver ahead of the front wheels are really spooky, though.

I know that there are at least a few laminar flow airfoils where the widest part is at about 50-60% of the chord width.  I'll try to dig up more details later in case anyone is interested.

There may very well be non-laminar flow airfoils with the same feature, I just don't know of any.

I'm not even going to address the issue of laminar versus non-laminar.

Not producing lift is good too.

[JackD]

Aero downforce is good for a lot of things in LSR, but get it sideways and flying won't be any trouble it will be the landing.

[sockjohn]

Aero downforce is good for a lot of things in LSR, but get it sideways and flying won't be any trouble it will be the landing.

As somebody who has glider time, I can say landings are easy - you will land!  Some landings are bumpier than others however.   

Good old P-51 airfoil looks pretty deep, as well as the GAW.
Please note the figure 2 shows the % as the point the flow becomes non-laminar, not the point of maximum chord.
http://www.dreesecode.com/primer/airfoil5.htm

This from the link alludes to why I think we're as well off with non-laminar airfoils.  This doesn't even factor in cutting holes for wheels and break lines for canopies. 
"Consider the builder?s ability to control the wing contour during construction and flight. The surfaces of metal airplanes tend to ?oilcan? during flight and this can change the contour enough to trip the boundary layer.

When using composites, it?s important to keep close tolerances on the airfoil contour. Contour control of a surface isn?t just a step-height allowance; it depends on the chord length that it occurs over. Aluminum? Forget about it."

[tortoise]

As somebody who has glider time, I can say landings are easy - you will land!  Some landings are bumpier than others however.   

As a great actor said on his deathbed, dying is easy -- comedy is hard.

[Speed Limit 1000]

A good place to start is to find the narrowest driver. LOL

But then you don't have the ballast or the steering dampener built into the driver, you would have to add them.

[RidgeRunner]

     Not only do you lose visual line-of-sight the closer you sit to the front wheels, you also lose the seat-of-the-pants feel because you are closer to the pivot point as the back starts to come around.  Found that out one of the first times I drove a van on snow, almost sideways before I felt a thing...............