investigating Rocket pod drag wrong?

[sadfunda]

i bought the huey on the weekend sale
i knew it wasnt fast, but i didnt expect to be going 80 knots...

tested some, big rocket pods seem to drag so much that you can barely go 90 on a good day, with 20% fuel and nothing else, no change if they are empty or full

jettisoning them you just shoot to 120 (i think i had 125 max) pretty quickly

i dont know much about helicopters but i dont think those tiny rocket pods should drag you so much as to reduce your speed by 30-40 knots... especially when they dont even have rockets in them

huey rocketpods.trk

Edited April 30, 2021 by sadfunda

[rimmer66]

its the weight not the drag , and the huey is slow cruise 90-100kn any more and your pushing the engine

[admiki]

It seems to be small addition to total drag, but drag goes up as a square of speed. So, drag of those pods from 60 to 120 knots is 4 times. And those are heavy too. So, engine has to fight weight first, before being able to provide speed. One of the reasons Cobra was created is that gunships couldn't keep up with slicks.

[sadfunda]

On 4/30/2021 at 7:40 PM, rimmer66 said:

its the weight not the drag , and the huey is slow cruise 90-100kn any more and your pushing the engine

yes but i can go 120 no problem with a lot more weight than the pods

and also speed stays the same while they have no rockets in them, thats not right, they get both lighter and should drag less

[NineLine]

Looking into it, I would think the M261 was somewhat draggy, but asking the team.

[admiki]

On 5/1/2021 at 6:57 PM, sadfunda said:

yes but i can go 120 no problem with a lot more weight than the pods

and also speed stays the same while they have no rockets in them, thats not right, they get both lighter and should drag less

Drag is increased exponentially. Weight does have effect, but surface area is more important once speed gets up. Test how much increase in power you need to go from 40 to 60 and from 80 to 100, and then check how much you need from 100 to 120.