But the CFD isn't to replace building the model...it's to give you a head start and reasonable starting location, and to find glaring errors. Otherwise you're going to be spending thousands and thousands running back to the wind tunnel every time you want to iterate..
Agreed, and that is exactly how we used it with the Navy - the CFD simulations narrowed the universe of options so we could be more efficient with the wind tunnels and water tanks. In this case, however, he has a specific shape that he wants to test. For that, going straight to a physical model makes sense.
