It doesn't matter how powerful an engine the towing vehicle has. You state that the cart's wheels can provide T*w power to the prop but the prop consumes T*w3 when turning. So whatever pushed the BB off the line was either powered by magic or you missed something out.
No. That is not what I said. Spork's submission model has the thrust and generator power rising linearly with cart speed.
I said the load presented by the prop will increase as w^3, but power from the generator increases with w. The gearing ties w directly to the speed of the cart. For a constant torque that is the case.
If the generator is to supply the motor that drives the prop, then to meet the demand, the generator torque must rise as the square of w.
Not possible with the cart as is, but could be made to do so, yet it would still fail.
Prop power = Generator power
Prop power = Tmotor*w^3 = (Tgen*w^2)*w
Gearing will not change the
ratio.
Torque is directly related to the wheel drag, so that increases as w^2, and so the square of the cart speed.
Thrust = Prop/V_air so rises with V_cart.
Even the "air lever" fails, because the thrust rises linearly, but the wheel drag is quadratic. Spork's theory is wrong. Such a cart would stall well below WS.
A truck can pull it beyond that.
There is
never a "free lunch" with power, and you are seeing the Nth^n attempt to try to do so. It's simple math, JBTH.
ETA:
About that start. Harold Bricer wrote a calculation using calculus, which concluded that a cart in a steady downwind would only reach around 50% of WS. The cart does that a lot, and that can be seen in the Jenkins video where it crawls at 2m/s for a quite a while. That is trial evidence that
Harold is right.
When the wind changes from a steady ddw, to a changing offset wind, the cart starts to move. Happens every time, and the NALSA chart shows it.
The NALSA expert Smith, also said that a changing wind could do that. He also said a test of the motor current would say if the wheels were driving the prop above Ws.. The above calculation says it can't be.