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"is actually producing a road legal one"

The one at Goodward FOS was cleared by DoT and is road legal. The driver announced it in an interview on TV.

that'd be lovely to drive behind -- you can see the dirt cloud that it's constantly sucking off the ground loom a few inches aft at all times during the Goodwood run.

I presume the fans must be turned off on public roads?

aside : how does one engineer a fan blade that's going to suck in rocks all day under normal use?

You don't. You design the intake or ducting with inertial separation. The inertia of any debris dense enough to cause damage can't make it to the fan.

In the PT6 turboprop engine, the system forces air to go around a bend, and also opens a trap door. It's actuated by the pilot for landing/takeoff.

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/16206/how-do-in...

There is no need to run the fans at all or at least not nearly at full speed on public roads. So I would expect the dust cloud to not be there during operation on public roads.

Also the output it filtered so there are no rocks or other debris thrown into the car behind. That was already the case on the prototype raced at Goodwood.

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