Lexember Day 11

[ysabetwordsmith]

I'm doing Lexember this month. The idea is to make (or learn) a new word every day. This can be for a conlang or a natural language.


December 11
Jib fin -- a small, triangular fin or flap mounted on the front of a zoomwagon or other zetetic vehicle to aid maneuverability. It works a bit like wing or tail flaps on airplanes. The name comes from a jib sail on a ship.
[Polychrome Heroics vocabulary]

Comments

[siliconshaman]

Hmm.. zoom wagons would have canards too, right? Help keep the nose down and the rubber on the road. IIRC one of the early designs for Thrust SSC involved a forward set of canards and 'jib fin' to manage supersonic airflow.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

They require something to create press, since gravity isn't always enough to maintain a firm grip on the road at that speed. They have to be aerodynamic, and the necessary shape of the car (flattish on bottom, roundish on top) tend to create lift that has to be counteracted somehow. Most don't do all their tricks with super-gizmology (e.g. inertial dampeners, graviton technology) so they rely on ordinary physics to assist.

It is possible that some fixtures can function both as canards and as jib fins, depending on the position. For example, a zoomwagon with the Jump ability would almost always have mobile or at least retractable canards, because you'd need control over the lift/press equation to assist a jump.