Seating in tandem in vehicles
 

I never understood why tandem seating in high fuel economy cars isn't more prevalent. The smaller frontal area would help fuel economy. There have been some of these vehicles over the years but they seem to fade away and disappear.

The FUV has it, but I wonder the same thing since the Aptera doesn't. Heck, I saw a sailplane on TV that had side-by-side seating.

That said, it does allow the taper to begin sooner, so that may offset some of the inefficiency of side-by-side. There's no way someone could sit behind the driver in the Aptera due to lack of head clearance. The vehicle would have to be longer to accommodate the slick shape.

All your glass homebuilt aircraft are side x side so apparently not much of a drag penalty

Unless the vehicle could remain as short as a motorcycle, and perpendicular parking could be done too, I wouldn't really hold my breath for tandem-seating to become so common.

The traditional shotgun seat?

If the second occupant (typically a spouse) has any input in the decision, it will be a tandem side-by-side.

With the FUV, conversation is possible because both are beneath an elongated dome, which has excellent acoustics. An inside mirror allows for eye contact.

:thumbup:

Flip side is every two seater sailplane I've flown was a tandem.

I guess the answer lies in the Smart Car. It fits everywhere and looks small.

Ironically going tandem has two benefits if mage long enough. Not only does it have less frontal area but longer less pronounced curves are also more aerodynamic.

But apparently few people would buy a tandem Aptera that's as long as a 15 passenger van.

Here is the deal in my area, if a vehicle doesn't occupy the full with of the road as in it's narrow like a motorcycle, larger vehicles tend to bully them over and even run them off the road - seen it several times.

In my old small Porsche 911 I've had people try to do the same thing to me.

Many full sized pickup truck and SUV drivers drive with their tires on or over the bicycle lane stripe because they feel compelled to take up the entire width of the road. If they spot a vehicle not taking up the full width they often take action to take that territory from the narrower vehicle.

I wish that I was just making this up, but sadly I'm not.

tandems
 

For all the really fine tandem designs offered over the decades, none seemed to ever fire the public's interest, regardless of how great they might have been.
GM, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen all tried.
James Bede's 100-mpg Lightstar never caught on. Aptera.
In the 1950s, if you bought a Cadillac, they'd give you a Messerschmitt 3-wheeler for 'free.' I've only seen one of those on the road, and only because my Air Force roommate's girlfriend's brother had one.
I started to mockup a 3-wheeled tandem 'mini-hypercar' and soon abandoned the project after experiencing how traffic treated me when riding the motorcycle the car would have been based on.
It was one thing to lay a bike down on Ventura Boulevard commuting to high school in the late sixties, something else just to be run over by a local good-ole'-boy in a pickup, just 'cause I happened to be on the same road.
There is no right to life in Texas.

That's why motorcycle safety classes teach to occupy the side of the lane nearest to traffic.

When I'm traveling in a multilane highway, I ride closest to the vehicles in the lane next to me. Not only are they able to see me in their mirrors, and are more likely to watch where they are within their lane, but it provides a buffer that I can escape to should they begin to cross into my lane.

With oncoming traffic, I generally favor the inside line, and only move to the outside just before passing by.

If there's a string of oncoming cars, I favor the outside line to give everyone in the line maximum opportunity to see me.

All of these strategies can be applied while driving other vehicles, but hardly anyone thinks of such things. Most aren't engaged in the driving process, which is why they get hit by people running red lights when they could have avoided the accident had they simply looked.

An option of having one seat a foot or so behind another has been used in some small aircraft. This means less width needed for elbow and hip room while maintaining ease of communication.

Semi-tandem?

semi-tandem
 

The 1938/39 Porsche 60K10 Berlin-Rome racer used this a strategy to minimize frontal area.;)

I like the idea of tandem where the legs of the rearward passenger can extend into the hip area of the forward seated person. This places them as far forward as possible, and utilizes the otherwise void space in the seating area caused by shoulders being wider than the seat.

I'm wondering if commercial airline seating could be even more efficient or comfortable by offsetting the rows or creating "straddled" seating? The big discomfort with commercial seating is inability to extend the legs. Straddling would eliminate that discomfort at the expense of some of distance between the person seated ahead. I'd take that tradeoff.

Some good posts here. Just looked up that Porsche Berlin Racer. Must have looked quite advanced at the time.

In that case you probably haven't seen the Volhart-Sagittta V2. Similar era and aero but it's a four passenger vehicle.

https://ecomodder.com/forum/member-f...ve12d2-042.jpg

In the rear quarter window you can see the top of the rear seatback. Imagine a head with a German helmet above that. It doesn't give up much to the racer and there were two instead of one (:)). 90MPH on 21 or 25 HP.

The tulip panel below the windshield makes the cabin a filleted half-body of revolution.

https://ecomodder.com/forum/member-f...ve12d2-569.jpg

That rear seatback again.

Better Cd than a Prius.

IIRC the Renault Twizy resorts to this layout.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EnGGcp6Nt...o-esquerdo.jpg
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kZ09q52p9...o-esquerdo.jpg


Safety regulations (and maybe the ADA too) prevent this.

Porsche Type 64 – A Star is Born
https://www.porscheroadandrace.com/p...-star-is-born/
I like Aerohead's explanation better.


http://www.smcars.net/threads/porsch...k2-1938.33964/
http://www.smcars.net/attachments/be...om-jpg.110898/

Berlin - Rom car
Porsche Typ114K2 (1938) | SMCars.Net - Car Blueprints Forum
http://www.smcars.net/attachments/re...37-jpg.125058/

http://www.smcars.net/attachments/vw...bp-jpg.125057/

blueprint
 

* From the plan-view portion of the drawing, you can see the nearly all-body plan-taper, borrowed from Prandtl's 'Lange' car, which in model form registered between Cd 0.16, and Cd 0.14.
* The hand-built 60K10 recreation has been tested at the A2 Wind Tunnel. Perhaps, one day, the owner will be kind enough to share the Cd.
Look for it on the 10th line down from top
https://www.google.com/search?q=Pors...w=1309&bih=717

Czinger 21C
https://www.motorauthority.com/news/...mid-engine-car
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1630931105.jpg


Czinger 21C
https://www.carscoops.com/2020/02/cz...igsegg-regera/
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1630931105.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1630931105.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1630931105.jpg

The Czinger needs to say 'no step' on the rocker panel.