The drag force on an American football

We have measured the drag coefficient on an American football oriented so that its major axis is pointed directly into the wind. The football was suspended from the top of a wind tunnel by bicycle spokes attached to small bearings. The results are similar to the drag coefficients reported by Rouse (1946) for the case of an ellipsoid with major diameter/minor diameter similar to the length/diameter for the football. The drag coefficient for a spinning football is slightly lower than that for a nonspinning football. Both are in the range of 0.05-0.06, about half the value assumed by Brancazio (1985), about one-third that reported by Rae and Streit (2002) and far smaller than that reported by Cunningham and Dowell (1976). (C) 2003 American Association of Physics Teachers.