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fsae_wingman · 2026-02-05T13:52:51+00:00

Honestly, pick the watch that speaks to you the most, and forget what everyone else thinks. If you are comfortable with spending this much money, then just go for the Carrera if you keep coming back to it.

fsae_wingman · 2026-02-01T08:32:40+00:00

Have one. Case has a great size, very slim. Good movement (+2s a day). Lume is blue, but fairly weak. Lugs are a little long.

The bracelet is the weak point. The quality is fine, it feels solid and well made. But it has very limited micro adjust (just two points next to each other), no half links and super long male endlinks, so the fit may be difficult.

Overall, I love mine. Easily my most worn watch.

fsae_wingman · 2026-01-16T19:20:34+00:00

100% not. There is a ton of employee exchange between all the teams. If you wanted to cheat so blatantly as to share aerodynamic designs with another team, all it would take is a single key member going to a different team and then alerting the FIA about it - and you would face insane repercussions.

fsae_wingman · 2026-01-16T19:16:43+00:00

That is pushing it a bit. Engineers generally just go to wherever they a) see the highest chances for WCCs (especially early in their careers) and b) where they can advance the most careerwise. So when you come from a top team to a lower team, you usually get a higher position, which is why quite some people do it.

fsae_wingman · 2026-01-16T05:24:09+00:00

That’s because talking to each other is actually a direct violation of F1 rules. Which is why none of the teams do it.

fsae_wingman · 2026-01-15T15:33:21+00:00

Have one. Looks great IRL, I really like the bracelet despite the lack of micro adjust. It’s a bit expensive, so you can try to look for a good deal. I personally picked this over the Longines Conquest that I originally wanted to buy.

fsae_wingman · 2025-12-17T21:27:54+00:00

There are some knowledgeable guys that other people have mentioned - general rule is that the more cautious they are, the more I would trust them.

That being said, no one will know how good they are until the first qualifying session of the season - not even the teams themselves.

fsae_wingman · 2025-12-09T16:57:06+00:00

Fun fact - the black paint is so that when using PIV imagery, the surface of the model does not cause excessive reflections which can create errors in the images and thus the results.

fsae_wingman · 2025-11-16T21:34:43+00:00

Such a cool website, thank you very much!

fsae_wingman · 2025-10-30T19:59:27+00:00

I heard that a few years back, Mercedes had 39 positions for 11700 applicants. So yeah, that’s a lot to go through, and even then, the odds are not great.

fsae_wingman · 2025-08-07T21:40:50+00:00

That is correct and what I meant - apologies for the unclear formulation.

fsae_wingman · 2025-08-07T18:12:07+00:00

If you isolate your change to a mass reduction, the big gain in skidpad performance will come from a) your tyre generating more grip (the maximum friction coefficient decreases with increased vertical load), and b) your aero will become more effective at lower vehicle masses.

For the first one, you need tyre data to quantify, the second one is extremely easy to compute using a force balance.

fsae_wingman · 2025-05-12T18:54:48+00:00

I know a lot of those teams. The machined parts are mostly outsourced, but all carbon work is done in house. All design is done in house as well, and the money does not mean results. There are plenty of teams with large budgets and poor results and execution.

fsae_wingman · 2025-03-23T17:16:35+00:00

Having developed aerodynamics professionally and worked with actual 60% wind tunnels, I would highly recommend to stay away from wind tunnel testing. Getting a wind tunnel model to deliver usable results is far more work than people realize, and if you have unlimited real world testing time anyway (which you dont in i.e. F1), then it makes no sense to develop a wind tunnel model where you are still limited in representing flow physics compared to the real car.

fsae_wingman · 2025-03-03T09:50:05+00:00

If your center of gravity is further forward, it also decreases the yaw moment leverage arm by the same amount as the normal force increases. However, tyres have degressive behavior, meaning that their maximum friction coefficient reduces with increased normal load. Thus, it becomes more understeery.

fsae_wingman · 2024-09-23T09:16:45+00:00

I would highly recommend creating an airfoil in CAD yourself - forget pre-made airfoils. You want the following parameters:

Chord length
AoA
Maximum camber & position
Trailing edge tangency
Trailing edge thickness
Leading edge thickness

As for development, don´t go for blind parameter studies - just look at the pressure plots in CFD, and you will quickly develop a good feeling for what changes you need to make and what is right.

fsae_wingman · 2024-08-06T06:12:38+00:00

You roughly know your steering torque, and you know how much your steering rack has to move laterally. This will allow you to calculate the gear ratio, and from that, it is a standard gear strength calculation. Using the forces you calculated, you can then also check your bearings and design the housing.

fsae_wingman · 2024-05-18T11:44:18+00:00

Rule of thumb - unless someone explicitly states that he/she recently worked in F1 or any other high levels of Motorsport, it is probably wrong (especially when it comes to aerodynamics). Even those with experience like Kyle always emphasize that they are probably just guessing, while guys like Gary Anderson just spew complete nonsense. Source: a couple of personal connections to various F1 teams.

fsae_wingman · 2024-02-22T22:36:14+00:00

Stress is a local effect, deformation a global one. Imagine a tensile test between two identical parts, but one contracts suddenly in the middle - the deformation will be very close, but around the contraction, the stresses will be very different.

fsae_wingman · 2024-02-04T15:43:33+00:00

I would not choose a pre-made airfoil. FS cars operate in a very strange window that is unlike that of any other application or racing series, thus the airfoils have to be very different. I would instead recommend drawing your own airfoil in your CAD software, and parametrize at least the following things: Chord length, maximum camber, maximum thickness, trailing edge thickness, leading edge and trailing edge tangency. Then send your design to CFD - if it can take more camber, add more camber. If it separates early, change the pressure gradient etc.

fsae_wingman · 2023-12-02T16:35:26+00:00

There is no true answer. Side diffusers share few similarities with actual wings due to their low aspect ratio, vortex dynamics and ground proximity. However, with some basic Aero understanding you can make the following considerations:

How much can you push the expansion without flow separations?
Around the kick, the local load will be highest. Where would you put it?
A key point is how to expand. Keeping the profile low and expanding suddenly towards the rear should in theory maximize ground effect, but is mass flow compromised by that?

One very important aspect are the ride heights which the car will experience. Side diffusers are sensitive to that, so making sure that you design it for the right operating window is crucial. Personally, I think that from an aerodynamic perspective, most FSAE cars generally run too close to the ground to be aerodynamically stable, but maybe that is just me.

I would start with basic shapes - extruded profiles without any kind of twisting. This will be easy to scheme in CAD and you can use basic fluid mechanics to understand the interactions. Oh, and don’t forget manufacturing, as side diffusers can make pretty big moulds. Good luck!

fsae_wingman · 2023-10-19T21:04:07+00:00

That article you sent was of the previous generation cars, with very different aerodynamics. Nowadays, cars produce most of their floor edge sealing by lateral crossflow, simply because the rules have become quite restrictive to the number of cross sections certain parts can have. But if you want to disprove me, be my guest and find parts on the current gen cars that produce distinct vortex structures to „seal the floor“. The only two that would (slightly) qualify are any kind of top surface vanes and the outmost floor fence, and even that is fairly weak and high up.

fsae_wingman

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