Quote:
Originally Posted by freebeard
I'm always up for a 'new' Colani; but the bubbles in the roof don't align with the seats and steering wheel. Did anyone notice the airplane in the background of the black and white picture? Some of his best work involved locomotives.
|
I believe the bubbles are to do with avoiding vortex formation at the roof-door junction, not about headroom... does beg the question "why not just make the whole roof lower?" of course. Would be interesting to see it in a wind tunnel, and see what effects those bubbles have vs. a more conventional roofline - Colani managed some very interesting aerodynamics just from instinct at times (I mean, he had the education, but his intuition seems to often go beyond that).
The plane in the background looks like the Pontresina, one of his counterrotating-prop speed record planes I believe. I just noticed it seems to use the equal-area rule, I didn't know he was looking to go supersonic in the thing
Speaking of planes - this is *slightly* off topic, but I think worth a mention in this thread, as it is very aerodynamic, also a CR prop design, and was built circa 1940 by a well known car designer: the Bugatti 100P
