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The recent post about Bill Franklin's Flettner Rotor Ship
demonstration
reminds me of a note I published in The Physics Teacher about twenty
five years
ago called "A Forgotten Magnus Effect Demonstration". This was a cart
mounted
on four HO-scale model railroad bogies, running on two sets of
parallel tracks
for stability. A small DC motor was mounted on top of the cart with
its shaft
vertical, and the spinning drum was a small spaghetti-sauce can. The
power
supply was via two thin and flexible wires. I used a box fan to supply
the air,
and the cart would go forward and backward depending on the direction
of
rotation of the can.
Over the years I have accumulated all sorts of material on the
Flettner
rotor ship, including a photocopy of Anton Flettner's book, "The Story
of the
Rotor" and a nice stero card of one of his ships, but have never found
the time
to write a note about it. In my old age I probably ought to build a
model
Flettner sailing yacht, but I have stacks of things to do and write
before I
get to it.
Tom Greenslade
Kenyon College