area51branson

Think bigger man . Out side is grate , WHEN its good out . cold wet , storms, Heat, TIME in general! . its all right there day or night . If it were close enough I'de use it ...alot .

I was hoping for a use of the by product of the tunnel operations air movement . Certainly a wind mill generator is going to take a lot of force / drag to make electricity of any KW's to offset the cost of operation. And I can see that as messing up the airflow ether at the intake or exhaust . Where as a Kite room would have little effect if designed properly ,, and only if indeed the airflow is enough in mass volume to do so . A 100' square ft intake is small , a little over 3 sheets of plywood. Anyone know the speed of air at the intake? And Do any of you get your wing out and kite them on a good breezy day? If so what is your reason for doing so ? I know us PG guys do so as often as we can to keep our skills up, and today would be a good day for it here , but i have to be at work in a little bit . dang it !

Are the tunnels powered by diesel electric , or just electric ?

Regulating the airflow in the Kite room . The initial building of the kite room could be designed to provide bearly aduiquite kite-able air flow through the room, at the tunnels lowest customer useable setting, then to gain airflow speed moderatly through the room, as the tunnel speed goes up. Or the room is shaped like a square funnel . Depending on the tunnel speed is where you would position your self in the kite room funnel for the desired wind speed . Or the majority of air flow is made by the tunnels intake but would need backer fans in the kite room to make up the difference. This would put the intake at the tunnel fan at a positive pressure insuring a consistant air streem in the tunnel It all depends on The CFM the tunnel moves at any given thrust as to the the size of the kite rooms cross air flow . It may be that the room would be to small to make the needed airflow speed to be of any use . . Just thoughts here. I'm certainly not an engineer of fluid dynamics .

Expanding on your exanple of a shop vac .I made a 1 foot round parachute out of tissue paper and thread and placed it in the hall way where the central AC unit 's return grate is located . The parachute inflated from the air movement down the hall but I did not notice any reduction in airflow or any laboring of the fan . When the parachute was faned out over the intake grate and sucked to it , yes It did have a profound effect . So if the PG wing is in a big enough hallway where the overall volume of air the tunnel fan needs to function properly is traveling at a slow speed Because the hall way is big enough , there is plenty of volume to still provide unobstructed air flow to the tunnel . The air simply goes around and re combines because it has space and slow enough to do so. Once the wing is up and flying there is even less obstruction . The return grate on the AC unit and the hallway seems like a good scaled down example for the mass of air movement a tunnel generates on its intake side .

I was thinking more of ambiant air that surrounds and feeds the tunnel getting sucked in , not pushed in the "kiting room" unless ther were large squirrel cage blowers at about canopy height to help keep the wing inflated..maybe Valid points on "one timers" Suppose that this was for instruction with ether SD canopy or PG wing.

LOL I bet a tunnel builder is sitting in front of his PC right now slapping his head saying "Why didn't I think of that . Stupid sap he just gave away a million dollar idea," Well that may be true , But I have no way to facilitate this idea. And I have a lot more so I'm not too worried . But if your a tunnel builder and like this idea , just remember who you got it from in case you get a sudden attack of guilt. like that type of honesty exists in todays world .

Hey ! Thanks Chuck . I dont see where it could hender the air flow unless the wing got away and got sucked into the actual intake grates to the fan room. Like a plastic bag getting sucked into your homes central air return vent grate ,where the filter useually is . More than likely a netting well ahead if the intake port would prevent that. The air would still have room to go around and not impeed air flow to the tunnel. Its like a large volume of slow moving air funneled into a small but high speed shaft of air . We're controlling the large volume of air in a focused coradore that speeds the air up slightly then it feeds the fan room.

Hi All first post here. I'm a paraglider fan . Always wanted to try a tunnel but dont have one anywhere close by Here is a thought on how to make a tunnel maybe more profitable . Its by making a special room that the intake air for the tunnel is pulled through to generate a gental ,constant breeze of enough speed to kite a paraglider or speed wing in for training or even just for power kites and such to play in as a added adventure to the facility . I have no idea on the CFM requirements, or room shape that would allow it to happen It would take an expert in airflow . But it seems there might be enough , and if not maybe the tunnels intake flow across this room could be backed up with extra fans in the "kiting" room to get the airflow needed . which is around 5 to 10 mph . Anyway Like I said , just a thought here , It sure would be fun to have a place to go kite anytime of year no matter the weather ! Anyone have any ideas ?