Very nasty, no matter how many sold. It could have gone through the car behinds Windshield and killed some one or caused a swerve which in turn caused an accident. Could have hit a motor cyclist or could have been driven over.
That sort of failure is just not acceptable IMO

 

Definitely LIFT .. no down force. This "departure" can have saved your ***.... Suppose you did 120 or more on a track. You would have gone flying.!

 

If the wing is working as it should -- it should provide downforce. Or, more accurately, it should be "spoiling" the lift that would otherwise be occurring at the rear without the wing.

However, in this case, it's drag that's the real problem. But this should really never happen. There's no reason that the post shouldn't be way over designed for the amount of aerodynamic forces on the wing. This has to be a manufacturing defect or some damage that occurred (e.g. any chance that something hit the wing recently?).

 

Rottec, I remember them, aren't they the one's that led us to believe they were going to produce LED tails. then dropped off the face of the earth with no comment ?

I believe they import some of their stuff from China, I think most the seats they sell are from China, makes you wonder about the wing.

Regardless, sorry to hear, hopefully no one was hurt.

 

It's the ANGLE of the wing that determines if it's going to give lift or down-force. In this case, it clearly got lift. Porsche has a reason the design a wing in a certain way, and , in fact insists you are running a front lip to compensate and stabilize the total airflow around the car in a controlled manner. You would be surprised by the amount of lift a wing will provide at a decent angle of attack and at high speed. It therefore follows that such a wing installed incorrectly will be dangerous.... very dangerous in fact. As you can see

 

Lift or not, it should not have failed like that.

Second picture you posted scares me. Is that strut just a couple layers of 2x2 twill and then filled with clear epoxy resin or some sort of cast acrylic?......that's what it appears to be in that photo and is certainly not proper if the case. I work with structural CF components and proper directional layering of composites here and if that's the structural makeup of that strut it was bound to fail one way or another.

Sorry about the "loss" in any event. Hope it works out for you in the end.

 

Not to disagree or start an argument, but you have that half right actually. The shape of the foil is as important as the angle, up to the point of a stalled wing. Downforce or lift depends on the speed of the air traveling over the surface. If the bottom side of the wing has a curve, and therfore a longer time to travel than the flatter top, the result is downforce.
As you increase the angle of that airfoil as you state, eventually the wing stalls, and you get zero lift or downforce. Hope this makes sense.
If the wing mounts are not centered,the balance could have been a factor.

On another note, I have a copycat CF wing from xtrememotorsports, and track the car a few times a year, exceeding 150+ at end of straight, so you have me scared! Up to now though, it's been flawless. I'll pour over the wing now to check for Delma or other flaws...

 

No worries, the shape actually determines the amount of downforce per sq.inch for instance so (being able to generate more or not so much lift ie efficiency - either positive or negative). The angle tells you which way it's going to pull or push that car it is attached to. As I said, even with a flat plank, you would be surprised how much airflow can be deflected up or down which is lift (not efficient perhaps but nevertheless + or - lift).

 

Hey, another geeky pilot! Great pic! V35 Bonanza here! Weeeeee!

 

Umm, dude - I think you are taking this a tad lightly.

Aside from the fact that the spoiler could end up spearing the windshield of a following car as was mentioned above, have you ever taken a corner at 100+mph? If you want an extreme example of what can happen when a spoiler bails out at an inopportune time, google Roland Ratzenberger.

Would you say the same thing to a separated tie-rod end?

 

Those posts look like a single layer of cloth that appears to look like carbon fiber but then they are just filled with resin with no strength media in them. All I can say to that is WOW. Plain resin does not have much strength. Actually it sheers and fractures just like glass just like yours did.

 

Long term Mooney 231 but thereafter on to a Beech Sierra which I recently sold. Have +1000 hrs + IFR and multi engine.

 

Long term Mooney 231 but thereafter on to a Beech Sierra which I recently sold. Have +1000 hrs + IFR and multi engine.

 

luckily for you no-one was hurt or killed

 

LOL.......I had a TA Replica Wing in Carbon Fiber exactly like yours that I bought, and noticed the the fiber glass cracking where it attached to the pistons on the decklid. I was do to have the same thing happen to me, but i replaced it before it actually happened.