Oscar wrote:The '11 Duc is no looker, that's for sure - but it is probably damn good aerodynamically, extrapolating from their previous success and their connections (Ferrari).
Aerodynamics is bloody complex, and what 'looks' great quite often isn't. If you look, for instance, at the current crop of 'plastic' (composite-construction) light aircraft with their thin tailcones, they look marvelously swoopy and efficient. Here's onesuch: a 'Carbon Sting'`(fibreglass composite, carbon-fibre wings)
Then go look at a Whitman 'Tailwind', designed in 1953:
The Tailwind has a boxy, slab-sided fuselage, straight (untapered) wings, struts, a flat windscreen. The fuselage is steel tube covered with cloth, FFS, while the wings are covered in plywood. And it will disappear over the horizon in a speed contest with a Sting.
Oh, and as for that bloody enormous C/f swing-arm, have a gander at Stoner's swing-arm:
I have to say, my tastes find the HRC swing arm to be a work of art. Its elegant.
) I'd like to believe that someone will toddle along to Pramac next year with a large box full of revised bits and leave it inconspicuously in a corner of the pit box every now and then before the old warrior is broken by the beast.
