Desperately seeking riblet film.

That's the film that makes boats slip through the water like dolphins skin? Will it be available soon? What efficiency does it give? What efficiency would we get if we put riblets on the outsides of rockets, used plasma electrodes that reduce drag by 30 to 50%, reduced their weight with carbon nanotubes by 90% And substituted pulse detonation engines that weight less and that get 30- 70% better efficiency? What speed and takeoff payload could be achieved in a rocket or orbital space plane? If we pulled out all the stops and used every trick in the book we could probably make a resusable spaceplane. Anyone have time to do the calculations?

Information I have found seems to fall around 8-10% reduction in drag in both air and water craft. Doesn't sound like much but when you consider the energy in, it is something for relatively nothing. And except for occasional cleaning, no maintenance. I haven't heard of its use in F1 though and those guys are on top of everything. Does anyone know if it is being used on aircraft?

I remember reading about this material probably 15-20 years back and wondered whatever happened to it. I could be a major energy saving product if it ever gets fully developed.

It is my understanding that 3M sells it for use on aircraft, I am not aware of them selling a watercraft version (the geometry I would expect to be slightly different than the aircraft version due to the different Reynolds numbers). You can try contacting them directly:

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/WW/Country/Corp/Contact/

I'm not finding a entry on 3M's website, it may have been a one-off batch for research purposes. the thing is, would the drag reduction be enough to overcome the weight penalty of the film? And how do you handle seams? How robust is the adhesive? most plastic films and adhesives are attacked by UV and water. What happens when the film starts peeling off?