I remember doing some of these calculations in college, but that was over 20 years ago.
Question, what do you mean by 50% reduction? I assume 50% less drag. How does that translate to fuel consumed?
Real world question: Which will get better gas mileage:
A) An open bed pickup truck with the tail left down,
B) or the same open bed pickup truck with the tail up in the closed position?
Final question: what chapter/verse is your Jesus quote from?
As a side note, it’s usually not wise to patronize anonymous posters over whether or not that person does anything to help our economy or truckers.
I flash truckers into my lane nearly every single trip to and from work. That should count for something.
I build products vital to our national defense and our allies national defense (devices that find enemy submarines). You likely do not. Certainly this doesn’t imply do NOTHING to support our nations defense. Nor would criticizing parts of our military imply that either.
Oceans ahead of you in the marine transport field : private post following. As to the biblcal verse, read your bible. As to the aerotail, SOMETHING would be better than nothing; even boxfish have tails. Damn kamm, these truckers are real world people not ivory tower academics. Even a 1 mpg improvement is JOY to their ears, and pocketbooks.
Again, the clam shell-tapered tail on the skytruck in the Flight of the Phoenix movie worked for a 300 mph aircraft, don’t try to tell me it won’t work for 70 mph semitrucks. I KNOW it will even if it results in only a partial rear drag reduction. It may not be PERFECT, but GOOD enough = energy saved to do the same transport job.
As to the up or down tailgate on a pickup, come on already...