In reply to this comment by cybrbeast:
Why did the technology die with him? Surely more could be built?

>> ^cybrbeast:
Why did the technology die with him? Surely more could be built?


One person with extraordinary vision, coupled with technological know-how, engineering brilliance and the ability to get his hands dirty and plain-and-simple build what he imagines is a rare thing.

In the case of the Britten bike, this is a partial list of what made his bike special:

1) Partial girder-link front suspension with adjustable anti-dive properties.
-fork-type suspensions compress under braking and extend during acceleration, changing the geometry and handling characteristics of the machine quite drastically during the different driving modes. Britten's suspension design allowed him to control pretty much all variables of suspension geometry under changing load, making the bike behave however the rider wished.
- The rear suspension, while perhaps not as revolutionary, was a beautiful piece. It was essentially a carbon-fibre banana swing-arm with a linkage to the adjustable shock/spring assembly. If you look at the bike you'll see that there's no spring/shock assembly near the rear suspension, rather note the spring/shock assembly directly behind the front wheel- this is for the rear suspension! The front shock assembly is hidden in the front suspension linkage and cowling.

2) The engine itself was a stressed-member.
-While certainly not unheard of, Britten took the concept to an extreme, essentially eliminating the frame from the motorcycle. The front and rear suspensions essentially bolted directly to the engine, thus saving many kilos over contemporary designs. Take a look at any current MotoGP or Superbike- most use the engine as a partial stressed-member, but they all have frame members linking the engine, steering heads and seat-assemblies. Britten really only had a vestigial sub-frame for the rider's seat.

3) Well-controlled aerodynamics and fully-ducted cooling system
-Britten paid close attention to airflow over, around and through his bike. Look how cleanly the rider's body tucks into the bodywork. He paid close attention to details, notice how clean the entire assembly is- no exposed wiring, nothing dangling into the airflow, that incredibly sleek rear swing-arm and rear tire hugger. This keeps the airflow smooth and un-disturbed. Motorcycles aren't terribly aerodynamic machines in the first place, but a wise man once said God is in the details.
-The engine itself is a water cooled design, but where's the radiator? It's in a fully-sealed duct directly beneath the rider's seat. High-pressure air is inlet from the front of the bike, through the radiator and is exhausted into the low pressure area beneath the rider and above/ahead of the rear wheel. Greater cooling equals higher power potential.

4) The motor
- 999cc 60 degree V-Twin, belt-driven DOHC design, twin injectors per cylinder, sophisticated electronic ignition, hand-made carbon fibre velocity stacks, wet sump. The motor was designed to breathe hard, pumping out torque and horsepower (166 hp @ 11800 rpm- not sure about the torque figures), and run cool and reliably under racing conditions. Nothing here that any other manufacturer couldn't have figured out on their own, but Britten had the insight and the will to make the best motor in the world at the time. The 60 degree configuration was, I assume chosen for packaging reasons. Normally this configuration would have bad primary balance characteristics, but Britten engineered his to such tight tolerances that the engine ran smoothly right up to redline (12500 rpm) without using a balance shaft.
I'll also point out here that Britten wasn't above using someone else's part if it was better than he could make himself- the gearbox was from a Suzuki superbike, and the cylinder liners and voltage regulator (both of which failed at the Daytona race in '92- the latter costing Britten the win) were from Ducati.

5) Carbon Fibre
- While Carbon Fibre had been around for 2 decades or so at this point, nobody had used it so extensively. Britten used the material for bodywork, wheels, engine parts, suspension girders and the rear swing-arm. There is still no other bike, not even the current Ducati Desmosedici MotoGP bike, that uses so much of this exotic material. The stuff then, as it is now, was hugely expensive and challenging to engineer for different applications. Britten made everything himself, in his garage, figuring it out as he went. This kept the total weight of the bike to a hugely impressive 138 kg.

Keep in mind that he did all of the above in 1991 and 1992, with the help of several neighbors and one part-time machinist, in his backyard shed! He made the bodywork by hand, using a wire frame and hot melt glue, crafting the wind-cheating shape and cooling ducting purely by eye. He cast the aluminum engine parts himself, heat-treating them in his wife's pottery kiln, and cooling the heat-treated parts with water from his swimming pool!

Ducati, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki... any one of these manufactures could today reproduce and expand on what Britten accomplished almost single-handedly. None of them will- there's too much at stake for them. It's far safer to stick with the tried-and-true, making small evolutionary changes over the years. A true visionary achiever (to coin a term) like Britten comes along only every once in a great while.

I suppose that this is what was really lost when John Britten died... vision, engineering acuity, hands-on knowledge, and pure will. Touched with a little craziness.

It's that aerodynamic shell

Bird Aerodynamics
or why Herons, Cranes and Egrets don't extend their necks when flying.


There is a point where the length of the neck is no longer aerodynamic and the sharply pointed beak is better kept right in front of the body. They would not get any "lift" from their narrow, pointed beaks but, that shape does pierce the air quite nicely. Just like the nose of a jet aircraft.

Ducks and geese fly with their necks outstretched.
The flat bills of ducks and geese aid in acquiring "lift". I'm willing to bet that they can actually rest their "chins" on the wind as they fly. They now design highly efficient aircraft that utilize the canard (fr. duck) profile that features a small wing way out in front.

All flying birds also get lift from the way air flows easily over their straight backs but, pushes their rounder undersides upward as they propel themselves through the air with their wings.

Want more? lol
The pointed, elongated cone shape of the Heron's beak pierces the air and makes a cone shaped vacuum that is widened even further by the shape of the front of the bird. As the air is forced around the bird, frontal drag is reduced. If the neck was extended, this effect would be lost and the vacuum would collapse right behind it's head, in front of the bird's body, and the air would rush back in, the bird's body would fly into turbulence.

The wide, flat bills of ducks and geese create a wedge shaped vacuum as the birds propel themselves through the air. If you have ever noticed, their wings beats have a very short up and down travel distance, staying just on the edge of the vacuum wedge that their bills have created. Even the geese flock formations are based on creating an even larger wedge shaped vacuum for all of them to travel within.

The vacuums that birds create not only reduce drag, they create thrust. That is how the shape of a Peregrine Falcon enables it to exceed the pull of gravity ("freefall or "terminal velocity") without flapping it's wings. In a dive, the Peregrine's form, past it's head, becomes a very long cone shape. The vacuum that it's head creates while moving through the air, collapses behind it's head and the air starts rushing back in around the contoured shape of the bird, from front to back, propelling the bird forward. Same design as fish. If you've ever tried to tighten your grip on the tapered back end of a fish, you know that it shoots forward out of your grasp. And, the tighter you try to squeeze, the faster it goes. Lost a couple of good ones that way.

>> ^schmawy:
So beautiful and sleek...
http://gallery.photo.net/photo/5704604-lg.jpg


Yeah - it looks like a torpedo with wings. And I love how the legs tuck back for aerodynamics.

Check this out - http://videosift.com/video/Peregrine-falcon-recorded-going-183-and-242-MPH-in-dives

Orrite. Very cool.

However I do wonder what the point is over those little remote controlled helos.

I know wings are the only option at the scale of a fly, as the aerodynamic laws wont provide lift at that scale.

But I can buy a remote mini helo for $50 australian right now.

It was just so close to the car in front that it was running very slow air (relative to the car). Without the downforce from the body cresting the hill at that speed probably got eh car close to weightless and the faster air above the car sucked it up. The rest is down to Newton.

I don't think the aerodynamics were out for an open track, but you'd think they'd take slipstreaming into account too!

Had to watch this four times.  How did that happen?  The aerodynamics must have been way off for the car not to have enough downforce to crest a hill.

well personally i don't like how it looks maby ok from some angles but from most just looks like some fish that's been lapsed on a beach.

also think the companies logo is crap

if the car is relay aerodynamic and this allows it to perform better ore get more MPG then that's cool.

Apocalyptic Superstring Theory? I like it.

In reply to this comment by honkeytonk73:
Fake.

The universe is only 6000 years old. All the light from so-called galaxies and the rest of the universe was created solely for our amusement and is nothing more than a distraction. It isn't real. It is simply there to keep us busy until the day of rapture, where those who are 'chosen' will the magically transported into an alternate universe where they can live in happy la-la land on solidified cloudtops for the rest of eternity, grow a set of wings, and fly like birds oblivious of all physical laws, aerodynamics, gravity, and be without anuses... as we'll never need to eat or poop material from the physical plane of existence again...

Meanwhile the rest of you non-believers get to be sucked up and eaten by a real black hole along with the rest of the solar system. All black holes ultimately lead to one big highly compressed lake of fire. As fire cannot exist in aqeuous form, it is more like supercompressed plasma... rather than fire and brimstone as most might assume.

Fake.

The universe is only 6000 years old. All the light from so-called galaxies and the rest of the universe was created solely for our amusement and is nothing more than a distraction. It isn't real. It is simply there to keep us busy until the day of rapture, where those who are 'chosen' will the magically transported into an alternate universe where they can live in happy la-la land on solidified cloudtops for the rest of eternity, grow a set of wings, and fly like birds oblivious of all physical laws, aerodynamics, gravity, and be without anuses... as we'll never need to eat or poop material from the physical plane of existence again...

Meanwhile the rest of you non-believers get to be sucked up and eaten by a real black hole along with the rest of the solar system. All black holes ultimately lead to one big highly compressed lake of fire. As fire cannot exist in aqeuous form, it is more like supercompressed plasma... rather than fire and brimstone as most might assume.

^ not true. The plane is feeling that crosswind to a huge degree. Seriously. Take a wind measurement on the fuselage and it would detect 30knot gusts to the side. It's crabbing in order to stay straight over the runway, but that doesn't mean its perceived crosswind is zero. It can definitely affect the aerodynamics of the plane, even if the wind were constant. But it's not, it's very gusty which is even worse. This landing should not have happened. You can't tell me that everything was under control. This was a danger to all those passengers on board.

Wow, *promote

http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20164/?nlid=857&a=f
"The railgun gets its name from two highly conductive rails, which form a complete electric circuit once the metal projectile and a sliding armature are put in place. When current starts flowing through the device, it creates a powerful electromagnetic field that accelerates the projectile down the barrel at 40,000 gs, launching it in a matter of milliseconds. Aerodynamic drag along with a million amps of current heats the bullet to 1,000 °C, igniting aluminum particles and leaving a trail of flame in its wake. The researchers estimate the muzzle energy based on the mass and velocity of the bullet in the barrel and from precisely timed x-ray snapshots during flight."

The force to move forward is greater than the weight of the vehicle.

If there was a human sitting on it, it'll be a lot heavier, thus require much more energy for that initial launch I would think. Not to mention the size of the propeller and headaches you'd get when aerodynamics change when human sits on it.

Put some pedals and chains on that thing, and I would think it's gonna be a great energy saving bike, though I bet it's gonna be a little chilly on the driving seat. As long as you got the pedals, it wouldn't have to rely on wind for initial takeoff.

Sorry dude, it's a dupe: http://www.videosift.com/video/First-test-drive-of-the-Aptera-aerodynamic-electric-car

>> ^deathcow:
this is real, I know a guy who knows someone who read directly about someone who was there


That video has even fooled some good pilots. Apart from the obvious fakery of the landing, right after the wing allegedly comes off, the plane starts spiraling on the down line. The thing is that it's turning into the remaining wing. That's aerodynamically impossible, and I'm not talking about "the engineers say a bumble-bee can't fly" type of impossible, there is no way for it to happen.