why cant you see the airflow?

[adam2007]

why cant you see the air flow over the wings when the car is doing like 160mph? if you get what i mean?
like all the "white" air going over the wing showing the vortex's and etc

[wesley123]

because air dont got any colour?

If air got an colour we couldnt see anything

[tomislavp4]

Yup, air is invisible man, it doesn't matter if you are moving through it with 5mph or 500mph, it will remain invisible

[horse]

why cant you see the air flow over the wings when the car is doing like 160mph? if you get what i mean?
like all the "white" air going over the wing showing the vortex's and etc

The tip vortices are always there, you just do not see them all the time as the humidity and speeds are not high enough. The white stuff is basically clouds forming about the vortex cores and their appearance is governed by a complicated interaction between the temperature/pressure change caused by the vortices and the humidity/dew point of the air.

You can try and follow this wikipedia article Wingtip vortices

[Scotracer]

The only thing you see is the condensed water in low-pressure areas, such as the wing-tip vortices.

[PNSD]

Though the previous posts are 100% correct, along with the use of flow-vis we do sometimes get these rare moments where we can see airflow !

[Just_a_fan]

why cant you see the air flow over the wings when the car is doing like 160mph? if you get what i mean?
like all the "white" air going over the wing showing the vortex's and etc

Sometimes you can. It just needs the correct atmospheric conditions. We saw it last year in the wet races just before it rained. At least some rear wing tip vortices were visible; don't remember seeing any under wing flow condensing though.

[Giblet]

I've posted this image before.



It's all just fluid.

[adam2007]

how do they show the air in wind tunnel then? they spray it on the wing you can see it sepeate over the wing? i saw some airflow of rear wing ages ago just strands of air

[raymondu999]

What they do if I'm not wrong is use some smoke (or something white I'm not sure what it's called lol) in the air in front of the car. That way as the grey airflow (colored by the smoke goes through the car with the air, it's possible to see the airflow.

[kalinka]

It is indeed visible in right conditions :

http://www.f1today.nl/fotos/p305lco66.jpg

You can see a few examples on above page.

High hunidity/high speed i think.

[Lurk]

I remember that at the end of the 90's, vortex were clearly visible on rear wings... (as in kalinka's link)

It's all just fluid.

But water density is not the same as air density, so flow is not the same

[Giblet]

Don't worry, my tongue must not have been entirely in me cheek there.

In that pic, the car was going very slowly, so the visual effect at that speed might have been similar looking to what the air would like like at very high speed.

[Lurk]

Well... My native langage is not english so I'm not sure of the signification of your first sentence...

No problem with your second one

ps: is canadian flag for hockey final? Anyway it was a great match!

[Giblet]

Sorry Lurk, I just mean that I was being sarcastic about the fluid. I thought the question was odd that someone was surprised they couldn't see air.

Oh yes, the flag is for the hockey final, but also just in bragging recognition about our new Olympic record, and how well the Olympics went.

The luge accident not withstanding, but that was for the most part unpredictable, although very sad.