Jim Hall wasn't the first with overhead variable angle of attack wing

[Green Monster]

http://www.americanjetcars.com/arfons/art/art11.htm

[Green Monster]

http://www.americanjetcars.com/nwspp.../grounded3.htm

[Morris 1100]

Mercedes tested this at Le Mans in 1952.

[Green Monster]

Originally posted by Morris 1100
Mercedes tested this at Le Mans in 1952.

That's an air (speed) brake, not a wing. You still see them in use today on fighters such as the F-15. The first vehicle (land or air) to use a speed brake was the Sunbeam Silver Bullet land speed record car driven in 1931 by Kaye Don.

[Morris 1100]

So what?

[Green Monster]

Originally posted by Morris 1100
So what?

For one thing it means 1968/69 F1 constructors were so incompetent they couldn't keep a pair of wing struts from collapsing at one third or one half the speeds run by Arfons.

[Peter Mallett]

Franklin! Its been a long time. You still on the LSR is better than anything else kick?

Er apparently so.

[Morris 1100]

Franklin! I knew I had met him before but I just could not remember his name!

[MulsanneMike]

You're right, It was Michael May in 1956:

http://www.mulsannescorner.com/history.htm

May's wing featured a driver adjustable angle of attack (just like Hall's nearly 10+ years later). Interestingly enough, May's wing can be considered even more developed than what Hall showed up with in that May's featured wing endplates.

[krt917]

Originally posted by Green Monster
For one thing it means 1968/69 F1 constructors were so incompetent they couldn't keep a pair of wing struts from collapsing at one third or one half the speeds run by Arfons.

Surely that is a rather simplistic way of viewing it. LSR cars and F1 cars are designed for [b]completely[b] different tasks. For example, F1 cars have to go brae and go round corners as competently as they go in a straight line which means weight is a major factor. That is surely one of the reasons the struts were so fragile. And remember, it's not like all the F1 cars had the struts collapse all the time. The main problems were with Lotus and we know how fragile Chapman made his cars anyway.

[D-Type]

Hello, Franklin

Again you are over-simplifying things. As KRT917 says, the requirements for a LSR car in a straight line and a road racing car going round corners and on undulating tracks are completely different.

Admittedly some of the first F1 cars with wings did break their struts. Quite simply the designers failed to allow fully for the combination of the aerodynamic downforce, lateral inertia loads and dynamic enhancement loads. I suppose it's a bit like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge or the Tay Bridge for that matter, when engineers move well beyond the bounds of proven technology and their predictions are sometimes wrong.

Surely the first use of wings to keep a car on the deck was the Opel rocket car in the twenties?

[MulsanneMike]

D-Type:

Spot on for the first use. But May's was adjustable while the car was in motion and is the first use of that device.

[Morris 1100]

The pic I linked to in the third post in this thread was a Mercedes at Le Mans in practice in 1952. It was an air brake that folded up so it was flat when running down a straight but tipped up into the position shown for maximum srag under braking. It was found to improve the cars grip in cornering.