cycling / modelling crossover

[JohnM]

Sorry Sprogs, us old folk is gittin' a bit distracted by the boids. Now about these 'ere velocipedes ...

[sparrowhawk]

Yeah, back to designing an aerodynamic fairing for a recumbent trike, without using compound curves.
In Australia, they got a very lively racing scene, mostly high school activities. It´s called "Pedal Prix" (Grand Prix, got it?) and taken really seriously. Now, if you look at this vid, you can differenciate between 2 kinds of fairings: compound curves and simple shapes. The latter ones should be of interest to us, because they show what can be achieved with conical shapes and the like, quite similar to cardboard modeling. As a student I actually built an aerodynamic handle bar fairing for my standard upright (as opposed to recumbent) bike, from old newspapers over a positive mold. Paper then was glued with an aliphatic resin glue, similar to Elmer´s and made weather proof with ironed on film that is normally used for R/C model aircraft. It stood up to the weather surprisingly long, several years IIRC. A good mold for this could be a ZZipper recumbent fairing, elongated to your taste. Maybe, if you ask around on a recumbent forum, somebody should be able to help you or even sell you a used one.
Those are surprisingly efficient in terms of streamlining and weather protection: I used one for many years on my long wheelbase recumbent, traveling all through Europe with it and it kept my legs and lower torso dry and warm.

[sprogs]

Thank you all for your replies. Some useful links there.
The problem I have is that I have no knowledge of designing at all. Is there a simple program that I can use for basic design? Cheap if possible as I am "Financially Challenged" at the moment.
Liz