Tornado-chasing stealth Batmobile set to invade killer vortices A pair of intrepid 20-year-old Iowans have constructed a tornado-chasing vehicle that looks for all the world like a cross between a Stryker M1126 ICV, F-117 Nightwhawk, and a Ford E-350 van. Iowa Storm Chasing Network's 'Dorothy' tornado-chasing vehicle Armored, equipped, aerodynamically and aesthetically enhanced – Dorothy …
They're fickle. They can pick up a house and leave a baby behind. I would have hoped they had some windtunnel testing or will at least drive it into the path of tornado, run away in another vehicle and see what happens to it before staying in through a tornado. Too many people underestimate these storms.
Air travelling over the bump of the vehicle has to go faster than air travelling beside the vehicle. The energy for that extra speed comes from reducing the pressure. That shape generates lift. If the vehicle stays on the ground, it is because of the weight of the armour, not the shape.
A more obvious shape would be some legs sticking out sideways to stop it tipping over and an a disk on top: flat on top and curved underneath. That would create down force from wind in any direction.
The only way I would drive either design is by remote control from the safety of a storm shelter.
EF5s are very rare, and more common EF3 and less aren't capable of lifting/flipping a heavy vehicle that doesn't allow the wind to get under it.
Unless they're (un)lucky enough to hit the EF5 jackpot on their first outing, it will be "tested" on your garden variety weaker tornadoes first, and they'll have some empirical data on whether it is merely crazy or truly insane to drive that into the path of a EF4 or EF5.
As an Iowan, I'm proud of my fellow residents' ingenuity. I just hope I don't see it driving around town on a "mission"....we had a EF3 cut a path straight through the center of town about 7 years ago, so we're not supposed to be due for another in my lifetime!
I see that old fallacy of "half Venturi shape" is still alive.
Go and read introduction chapter in Understanding Flight to see why this is mistaken.
04/27/2011 - An F5 rated tornado hit Smithville, AL.
Among the other havoc, a ford explorer that was parked a half mile away from the town's water tower was picked up by the tornado and thrown into the top (That's right, the top!) of the water tower. The vehicle was then thrown an additional few hundred feet.
More details here: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hun/?n=franklintoral
Picture of truck (it's the red lump in the foreground), and the water tower it hit (waay in the background). BTW, the flat blue and gray thing in the picture under that was a tractor trailer that got tossed a quarter to half a mile in the storm.
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/srh/srnews/stories/2011/outbreak_smithvilleEF5.htm
So, um, good luck with that van fellows, you're gonna need it!
The shields are there to stop wind getting under the vehicle and lifting it, they also have spikes that extend down into the ground to prevent slippage.
But still, I'd like to see proper test results, I linked to a Mythbusters test below which shows the vehicles surviving a wind test, but it is far far from actual hurricane conditions.
I think the dangers they face is from being hit by other debris rather than being lifted and thrown themselves.
Air pressure differentials are the reason for things being moved around by big winds. This can't be assayed too easily by eye (or what looks nice). It should be assayed by scaled wind tunnel tests. Driving this thing into a tornado without such tests is foolhardy at best and possibly tantamount to suicide.
While I applaud their willingness to die for science, it really is worthy of a Darwin Award.
Regards,
TB
Vehicles like this have been on Mythbusters where they put 2 of them behind each wing of a plane and cracked the engines up to hurricane winds (IIRC they did 100-150mph winds).
They did survive, but I'd want a bit more thorough testing before I sat in one during a tornado. They have anchor spikes and the shielding is to provide downforce/prevent wind getting under the car to provide uplift. What they didn't test was impact from other debris, which I'd guess is a bigger problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FATrHPBGSDM
It looks like the latest version of a vehicle that's been around for several years. It features on the reality show Stormchasers.
Indeed. In fact Stormchasers showed multiple iterations of two tornado-chase vehicles - Reed Timmer's Dominator (which started as a common-or-garden Ford Explorer with some extra window protection, but evolved into something similar to this vehicle); and Sean Casey's TIV, which was designed to film tornadoes (not F5's, obviously - many Stormchasers episodes feature Sean's team trying to find sustained tornadoes that aren't too vicious for the vehicle's capabilities) from the inside.
Casey did eventually get (IMAX) footage from inside a tornado. His film is out and has been shown in a number of IMAX theaters. I think in the last season of Stormchasers he was back at it, trying to get IMAX 3D film this time.
So: 1) nothing terribly new about this Iowan effort, and 2) this sort of vehicle, including particularly the ground plates, has been tested. I know the supergenius team of Reg commentators knows more than all the rest of the world put together, but really, guys, you could do just a little bit of research before complaining that the Iowan team hasn't done any.
Of course, Stormchasers is also a reminder that on-the-ground tornado research is very dangerous, even when it doesn't become hey-I'm-no-longer-on-the-ground research. There was plenty of footage of tornado-caused destruction, and a few episodes that consisted mostly of the principals helping out in tornado disasters. And Tim Samaras, one of the most cautious researchers featured on the show, was killed in a 2013 storm, along with a co-worker and Tim's son Paul.
(It also shows that in fact not all tornado chasers are men. Just the overwhelming majority of them. Of course no one in IT is familiar with that sort of gender disparity.)
And massive cars?
I'd have thought something that looked like an upturned saucer would be the best shape - not just with edges as close to the ground as possible, but with the smallest frontal (and side) area presenting itself to the wind - whilst armour plates close to the ground will stop wind getting under, the bluff sides of a Ford Van present a large area for wind to push against, increasing the likelihood of disaster (Not to mention providing a larger and more perpendicular target for any debris to hit).
Something smaller, lighter, shorter and with air suspension would be the most intelligent thing - increase ride height to drive through tornado-hit areas, before dropping down to touch the ground for enduring a tornado head on. The technology is pretty widespread these days too...
If you wanted even more security, a Brabham "Fan Car" solution would help - what little air did get under could be sucked out through the top (but would have to run constantly through the tornado, and probably has a high probability of debris getting sucked in and destroying the fan anyway).
Even better again, smaller "not-flying" upturned saucers (remote controlled, loaded with enough batteries for a few hours driving and full of cameras) that could be loaded onto a truck, offloaded quickly near a twister and move up to investigate the twister whilst relaying info back to the mothership (ie truck) could potentially provide more telemetry, footage and understanding at smaller risk to personnel.
The Inverted saucer sounds the best bet for not developlng lift, combined with ground anchors it should give a fair level of security. Thhe problem with big storms is the power of some very local vortex effects can exceed the general wind speeds around and produce some impressive damage.
During the Oct '89 storm in the UK , near High Elms golf course in Kent, there was an area about 50 metres across where mature trees were blown flat in the centre of dense woods, the trees around were unaffected.
If something like that hit the car adrenalin will be the last thing to think about.
a large borer with an expanding bit so that they can anchor themselves a bit more firmly to the ground.
V1 will be a write off as it will probably take to the skies along with everything else in the path of the Tornado. my guestimation from having seen a Tornado lift a fully laden tanker (carry water) and toss it around as if it was a fly.
> Wouldn't some sort of RC camera/instrument drone be the thing to build today?
Something light enough to be lifted by a couple of electric motors is going to get ripped to shreds before getting in camera range of a tornado.
What might work is adapting the plan from Twister (which is where Dorothy got her name, BTW) - a shedload of GoPros in armoured balls in a dustbin left in the the path of the tornado. They get picked up by the tornado, and a few might survive long enough to record video of the inside of a tornado before being taken out by a flying combine harvester.
Fired down from the centre of the vehicle into the ground, barbed to prevent withdrawal, steel cable winched taught after firing. Basically an anchor. Single use of course because the whole point is that the harpoon is designed to be impossible to withdraw, so after the tornado has passed detatch it and leave it in the ground, and load up another ready for the next tornado.
A voice ( which I think comes from a kamikaze pilot at the back of the room, to whom it has just been explained what his mission is, in "a child's garden of grass" ) spoke in my mind's ear.."you gotta be outta your fuckin mind(s)"
Will they also have Mr T hair and large amounts of gold chains ( to weigh them down ) around their necks ?
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