Kelvin 40 - Marc Newson's ideal airplane

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1055410/L/
http://www.onoci.net/cartier/newson_uk/presentation.htm
http://www.le-webmag.com/article.php3?id_article=105&lang=en

"...named for the central character of Andrei Tarkovsky's film Solaris and for Lord Kelvin, a 19th-century Scottish mathematician and physicist known for his research in thermodynamics."

Length: 8140 mm
Wingspan: 8000 mm
Height: 2265 mm
Materials: aluminium and composite

"Hand-formed panels, patiently adjusted and riveted over the course of a year, engine components donated by Snecma, a manufacturing group that specializes in propulsion systems, aeronautics and space equipment: Kelvin 40 is the result of detailed analyses and painstaking studies made by Newson on the resistance of materials, the balancing of masses and proportions-the requirements of high technology.

The ONERA enabled Marc Newson and the Fondation Cartier to carry out aerodynamic simulations (both digital and in the wind tunnel) to test the Kelvin 40. "

Watching this mutant X-32 fly shoudl be interesting...

Interesting indeed...
Kinda reminds me Tacit Blue
could be dubbed "son of a whale" ;D

Regards

Zhuravlik

"But getting off the ground was never the goal for the 40, which "has no commercial reason for being; it is pure fun" according to Newson. It was his way of injecting emotion back into the world of personal aircraft, which in his view has become banal. "The world of civil aviation appears to us as pragmatic and rational and boring, which is absurd when you think how exciting the experience of flying is."

If Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo's interior design is from Philip Stark, Newson did it for EADS Astrium's space tourists spaceplane...stop-stop, he designed ALL the spaceplane??? "Astrium’s Marc Newson-designed space plane will be the most advanced vehicle of its type in the world." Hmm..

http://www.astrium.eads.net/families/space-tourism
http://www.marc-newson.com/

At least term 'Cockpit Visibility' is not a thing Mr.Mawson familiar with.

BTW, '40' is Mawson's age)))

Is he a Babylon 5 fan?



Minbari flyer.

Jon

One of these pesky Minibari spies, sure. Another big MI-5 breach.

Warrior, religious, or worker caste?

Minbari? No, I think he's more George Jetson! Ruhroh Rorge!!!

Although, it's configuration is eerily close to that Minbari Flyer as you show. I have to grant him the fact that it is an interesting design. Unfortunately, I don't think he realizes how much economics and the ability to manufacture it are important. There have been many designs over the years that were "cool" looking, but simply couldn't compete with the more conventional designs in terms of meeting the mission requirements in the most economical fashion.

More pics of the Kelvin40 concept from Mark Newson's personal website at http://www.marc-newson.com/:

Apparently, the Kelvin40 was never meant to actually fly, it was only a design creation...

The Kelvin40 was presented in 2003 at the Fondation Cartier. Although a strange design, it still looks a lot better than Boeing's X-32!

looks like the Dragonfly Aerospace Fighter from the Battletech game setting.
and personally i liked the X-32..or at least the earlier deltawinged version. the later version with the horizontal tails was just ugly..