r-pod Airflow

Well, in my past life (work) I used a lot of computer programs in various disciplines and the old saying of garbage in garbage out is very true.  I'm definitely not saying the Flow Illustrator program is garbage because it is not.  I was quite impressed with the out put from it.  I'm only saying it would be difficult to obtain any quantitative information not knowing the total input information and the conditions under which the model is subjected.  i too am impressed with the improvement in data processing that has occurred since I first processed "data" by hand and with a hand held calculator which believe it or not was not allowed in any of my college classrooms. Ah, the "good ol' days".  Yeah right 

Yeah, I suppose there was some value there.

Butterfly_Lee
The following is just my opinion.  The pictures and "airflow analysis" are a nice visualization of one set of conditions with the model presented and the boundrary conditions in the program.  The author of the program warns that the results are "not " a scientific result and should be considered a work of art and not a scientific result.  Now, that is not to say the results don't have worth , they do and can provide some 2 dimensional visualization of air flow across the various vehicles and r-pods.  I have enjoyed seeing the contributions and look forward to making my own when I get my Pod.  You should not put to much credence in the results you see as far as making a judgment of gas mileage etc. First of all I don't think the program allows input of vehicle speed etc to set the criteria under which the airflow takes place.  I have purchased a devise called a "scan gauge", which will give me instantaneous gas mileage, transmission temperature, alternator output, and several other readings and plan to use the hard data I get from the gauge readouts to improve my driving habits to improve gas mileage.  Maybe somewhere down the road, I may fool around with spoilers etc but for now I just plan on enjoying the R-Pod as much as I can when I receive it.   Bottom line is to go enjoy your r-pod and don't worry too much about the gas mileage.  Remember back a few years when all the big rigs had huge spoilers mounted on the tractors ?  How many do you see today ?  I don't think they helped as much as the people selling them said they did.

Ah, I missed that first time around.

Has anyone tried adding a deflector to the back of the 'pod?  I'm thinking at a 45 degree angle, mounted above the rear window.  That should even out the airflow back there.