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Seat of the pants designers and engineers.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
The seat of the pants designers disappeared when the various governments specified strength analysis and destruction testing to prove the design.
Government physical laboratories NPL in England, Eiffel in France and Gottingen in Germany, and wind tunnels defined airfoils, fuselage shapes to achieve tohe greatest lift with minimum drag. The crazy designs came from those individuals that did not have the engineering training to design a good airplane. The classic the the 'Christmas Bullet". The same is true with the engines. The aircraft were not designed on a by two guys doodling on a table table cloth during dinner. Designs came about in response to a government design specification which stipulated the type of aircraft, engine and guns and load, performance and range.
For example, the Morane-Saulnier Mos27c1, SPAD XV and the Nieuport 28C1 were designs in response to the same STA design specification. What was common with these three machines was the Gnome Monosoupape 150 hp rotary engine. Every company in every country had graduate engineers that
designed the aircraft.
Blue skies,
Dan-San
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