Feature | Aero Dynamics
Air Force Kyle Forster: An F1 view on aerodynamics for race cars Australia can be too easily discounted as too far away from the leading edge of motorsport – namely Formula One – to be relevant and involved. That’s a fallacy look at how many Australian drivers and engineers have made the grade – then there’s motorcycle riders and engineers, mainstream automotive engineers: the list is long especially considering the size of our population. Kyle Forster is one of those engineers who made the move to Formula One but in his own words “particularly coming from outside of Europe it’s difficult to get into Formula One.”
working to achieve his dream by studying for an undergraduate degree in engineering, then finishing his studies with a PhD in aerodynamics from the University of New South Wales. “I always wanted to work in F1 so I searched pathways into F1 – that pathway for me was to get a PhD,” he said. “At the same time that I was doing my PhD I started up a consulting firm as well as finishing my buggy and starting my YouTube channel (Kyle.engineers).”
In early November Mr Forster agreed to share some of his experience, knowledge and practices with the SAE-A audience in a 2-hour webinar on aerodynamics which is his specialty area.
As he neared the end of his PhD, he began to hunt down that elusive job in F1 and pinned down a position with Mercedes Petronas Formula One where he worked for three years – they were three championship winning years – before returning home to Sydney.
Mr Forster has been a racecar engineer for 14 years and spent almost as long
“I applied to Red Bull and Mercedes; Red Bull never got back to me, but Mercedes did.”
20 | December 2021
It sounds simple when it’s a potted history, but Mr Forster knuckled down very early in his studies and by the time he had finished his thesis on The Variation in Co-Rotating and Counter-Rotating Upstream/Downstream Vortex Interactions he had won a university medal and had achieved average marks of over 90 percent in his studies. He explains the thesis as a simple problem of two vanes in a line, one moved to different offsets and looking at the vortex interaction of these two vanes but done in great depth. All the way through university Mr Forster kept himself busy not just with study but with Formula SAE working on the Redback Racing UNSW team first as head of bodywork, then head of steering and finally technical director. As he explained during his webinar FSAE involved a lot of extra work that requires students to balance university study and FSAE but he also said: “for me undoubtably,
