FAST FIBREGLASS

[ROSS BROWN]

Once finished flow you can sand back to a 1500 grit finish & then polish, a good idea if you are expecting to do constant repairs as theres no need to color match. but for little 34 indian black did not suit it & as indian race colors were red. so be it.



just finish of signwriting & make the windscreen .Not sure if ive classed it right somebody corect me if its wrong.

[Chris Dunham]

I think the front section is a winner A mate of mine from back home (Mike Brosnan) used to race a home brewed bike called the Aero-De-Zero, could have the spelling messed up but that's what we called it. It had the same solution to parting the air at the front and judging by the way Mike could punt that thing around Ruapuna and Pukekoe the aerodynamics were pretty good.

Chris.

[AuotonomousRX]

Was that the first of the Brittian Bikes? (The Spec sheet looks like it's for the later Bike)



Pete

[Chris Dunham]

Hi Pete,

As far as I recall (this was a couple of years back and we all had our own nutty projects going on at the same time) it was Mike and John working on the Aero-De-Zero together and Mike carried on with the Aero and John launched into the first of his bikes. The Aero had sort of spoiler wings in front of the clipons unlike the pic you've posted. Mike was the machinist come mechanic on Johns bikes. The Aero had a 860 bevel engine or at least those were the cases and recall them cracking around the mains some time around or after a flying K event on the Old Tram road (think Mike got something like 150 mph out of it but could be wrong). The way Mike was pushing the front into corners at Ruapuna on the Aero was pretty impressive and don't know how much you can attribute that to the front end set up or the wild body work but I think it had more to do with Mike not having had a big off. The Aero certainly stood out in the paddock with it's 'nose' and it sounded great.

C.

[Chris Dunham]

I just had a look at the pic properly and that's the Aero even though it looks to have had repaint from when I saw it last (the angle of the shot sort of hides the clip on wing thingies and you can see a bevel head sticking out the front. The Britten spec sheet is probably for a bike out of frame in this image.

C.

[AuotonomousRX]

Chris

This is the first image that I came across about 5-6 years ago called the Aero-D-One,



what about these other two pics?





It was certainly one of the shapes I looked at when I was designing my Fast Fibreglass Fairing.

Pete

[Chris Dunham]

The bottom two pics look like Mike's Aero as I remember it. Will be home later in the month and hope to catch up with Mike - if that works out will pick his brains on the real world results of that shape or better still see if he will post on this thread/forum.

C.

[momec3]

The Britten story is worthy of its own thread if you bike guys are willing to start it.
I have seen some video of his acheivements but a tale worth telling for the many that have not. Needs to be kicked off by someone with knowledge of the facts. Perhaps in our history section. He was a special guy and most of us could relate.

Welcome aboard Chris, good name BTW.

Chris

[ROSS BROWN]

Chris
Kent Riches of AIRTECH explored the knife edge fairing to this limit.
It was tested and ridden by John Noonan about a year ago.
It crashed at around 270mph .. Johns explanation of the incident is that it just suddenly lost the front end and
slamed down on its side..
My own opinion of it ... is that the knife edge fairing is fine to a certain speed .. as long as you are strong enough to man handle it.. after that it will act like a playing card in the wind..
The full fairing (dustbin fairing ) was outlawed some years ago.. along with Rollie Frees swiming trunks ...

It will be interesting to read what Mike will tell you of the control and feel he had of the bike..

Ross

[Greg Watters]

I suspect the front ground clearance may have been more an issue than the general fairing shape
Although i would not like to be riding anything with that sort of frontal side area in a cross wind

[Chris Dunham]

We were doing a flying K event sometime in the mid 80's on the old tram road (a long straight two lane sealed road that runs along the Canterbury plains from near Rangiora towards the hills and has hosted quite a few record attempts over the years including a Vincent powered side chair land speed record of somewhere in the 180mph range - Russel Wright I think) and Mike ran one of John's bikes. I don't recall which one but the later shape which most people associate with John's bikes as opposed to the Aero fairing. He ran 170mph, it was making 170bhp on their brake and when he got it back to the workshop said the ignition was off by a few degrees. The bit that freaked me out was between runs when Mike said in his typically understated manner that it was weaving at around 160 and he had to ride through it. The Old Tram Road is narrow with broken wind breaks of pines down the right hand side which with even a slight cross wind can be interesting. I wish I knew more about fairings at those sort of speeds as the prospect of stepping off at my age has less and less appeal. I'm limiting my adventures on the salt to seeing how fast I can get a 500cc side valve to go and that should keep me happy.

Thanks for the welcome Chris. I'm happy to contribute to a thread on John's bikes though I contributed absolutely nothing to their build other than my invaluable opinion and there are many others who were hands on who may be coaxed into posting.

C.

[Stayt`ie]

Interesting to see the comment that the bike weaved at around 160mph, ive heard a few Hayabusa riders talk of a weave on the salt at 180-190mph,, ,,

[DaveB]

My bike had a weave almost every time i went over around 150mph this year. im not sure why but it went away.

scared the shit out of me the first few times, i had to ask around to make sure i wasn't doing something wrong.