"Easy to Build" but ugly is a bad idea

The sense of this thread seems to be that hard chine is intrinsically ugly regardless of lines. Here is the famous 1936 Bentley 4¼ Litre Razor Edge Saloon which was admired and copied for many years be lesser car manufacturers. the epitome of "hard chine" vut in an automobile. I double dog dare you to call it ugly!

 

Actually, I think the van next to it is the winner of the design award there.
I have a lot of time for vans.

When they built the first Volkswagen Kombi van, it was totally slabsided for ease of construction and optimum load carting, and could only do 53kph. (.75 drag co-efficient)

They then streamlined the shape, and got 86 kph .(44 drag co-efficient)
It was still pretty 'slabby' but rounding off the corners improved things greatly.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id...&resnum=6&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false



Efficiency of operation and build, to a defined purpose = appeal to me.

 

The F-117 (Which has now been retired from service) was a case of sacrificing all else for one design requirement. In order to get the faceted shape they created an inherently unstable aircraft which is only kept in the air by the efforts of three computers. During it's development one of the internal project names was the Hopeless Diamond reflecting the engineer's beliefs as to the likelihood of it flying at all.

 

Virtually all modern military combat aircraft are dynamically unstable these days and totally reliant on computers, but thisis a boat forum so I won't go on ...

 

Re: dynamically unstable: that's actually a very good thing in fighter aircraft. Stable aircraft have aerodynamic forces that force the aircraft into stable flight -- level wings, level attitude. A fighter, and especially a bomber (as the F117 actually is) wants to be "dynamically unstable" so these forces don't occur, so the pilot can just point the nose in whatever direction, whatever attitude. If the aircraft was stable, the pilot would ALSO have to provide additional force to keep the nose pointed that way. This causes things like translation or skewing.

To get the hang of this, just play with a high fidelity flight simulator game. Try doing a bombing run in a Cessna, then in an F-16. Its really hard to hit a target with the Cessna, very easy with the F-16.

 

Thats very interesting U4 - I knew a lot of planes could 'fly themselves', but never thought that that could be a problem.

Its like boats - some can 'sail themselves' if you put a long keel and a balanced sailplan, but you wouldnt want that design on a racing dinghy that has to put in a lot of short tacks.

Come to think of it - there are heaps of 'F-117 boats' that will fall over in a second (moths, lasers, mirrors etc ) that you wouldnt ever do long sea voyages in. Dynamically unstable on purpose.

 

agreed
that is probably one of the most timelessly stylish automobiles ever designed

another is the 1932 phantom 2 stretch limo Rolls

that ones by Rippon, the one I was hoping to find is by Salamanca

I think one of the things I most liked about this Atkins is its rugged simplicity, part of which is conveyed by its hard lines

 

Interesting read of opinions here. As the owner and source of the i550 design's plan sets, it is always good to see the i550 talked about.

The Gougeon build was edited down from 12,000 frames. The William Tell Overture is just so long. The final fairing was important to these guys; would you show up with a corn cob looking hull at a major event?
As far as placing 2nd in their division of the Everglades Challenge. These fellows are way more than retirement age and sensibly stopped for a nights rest and dinner, not sailing straight thru to the finish, that being a job for the young and sleepless.

As far as opinions on the aesthetics of the i550 I have heard many. One even draws a parallel with the kids playing with the box that an expensive toy came in instead of the toy. Kids are smart they know how to have fun.

A couple of things to note; top recorded boat speed so far is way over 20 knots. 12 are sailing in the States and 5 in Australia, about 8 in build in Tasmania, 19 more probably will see water in Yanklandia this year.

The boat is a development of a Long Island Sound Sharpie Oyster boat design.

Form does follow function and the first one to market with the oysters got more money. The sharpie is an evolved shape and I think beautiful. Why not make them stronger faster lighter?

T

 

Puddle Duck - UGLY. No thanks

I think there are some Bolger boats that are equally ugly but should sail much better. Why not get someone interested in them?

 

David Smyth,

Unstable bombers are not desirable - fighters are. Modern flight controls allow unstable flight but you need to get a significant improvement in some phase of control to make it worth the 10million lines of computer code.
For most uses an unstable boat is too much to handle, cause you don't have the $10M worth of controls with the 10 million lines of code.

If they end up that way I will have been long gone from boats.