beemerphile1 wrote:
Sleeker designs can save some fuel but consider that some RVs are a barn door going down the road and others are a slightly curved barn door. :B
It has always seemed to me like getting rid of some items on the roof would be low hanging fruit in terms of aerodynamics.
All those air conditioners and vent lids sticking up into the airstream have to be detrimental. There are a few RVs that put the air conditioner/heat pump inside a cabinet rather than on the roof. The vents, antennas, and other items could also be streamlined.
Look at the trucking industry. I don't know what all they call these things, but on the top of the tractors you see wind deflectors that are adjustable so they can be stored when the truck isn't pulling a trailer. Or you'll see the box trailers with a fiberglass looking bubble on the front of them at the top where the air would hit them coming over the tractor. You also see things under the trailers now designed to keep the wind flow out from under the trailer. Not to mention the tractors themselves getting more aerodynamic. What if all these things on those trucks was able to save 1 mile per gallon? Do the math. That could be thousands of a dollars a year per savings per truck. Millions of dollars for large fleets. It all adds up.
