Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Those bombers are ripe and ready to tilt

Much has been said about the Gothic Revival, like for instance "WTF Is that a Railway station?"

This is Pugin's 1910 design for the Goblin 14-cylinder air-cooled radial engine, with overhead poppet valves and a concentric cam shaft. A lot of people had doubts about applying the neo-Gothic style to aeroplanes, and then there were all the crashes and the screaming and all the I-told-you-so questions in Parliament.

The engine design was fine, if you ask me, but it was definitely a mistake to put gargoyles on the top wing.

UPDATE: Meanwhile the Scots slogged on doggedly with their neo-Gothic space program.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Gargoyles are never a mistake, so a few die, what price gargoyles, famously asked? By no one...in the rain...at Notre Dame at a rugby game....

duplerso, two ways person.

ckc (not kc) said...

Scott's ponderousness and prolixity

..Nice monument.. zzzzzz

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

The engine design was fine, if you ask me

The original plan was to use sacramental wine as a coolant.

mikey said...

Where do the the pasty chicks with the long black dresses, Doc Martins, black fingernails and the ennui enter into all this?

I'm just asking for a friend...of Smut's...

Substance McGravitas said...

The stuff from Ikea gets HARDER AND HARDER TO PUT TOGETHER!!! Why do my coffee tables need buttresses?

Unknown said...

...the ennui...
...I blame Paul Holmes.

udiness, high praise, as in...yo da Ness (as in Loch Monster, as in Rock Lobster...and so on ad infinitum).

Smut Clyde said...

chicks with the long black dresses

If you are referring to the lovely and vivacious 'Coffin' Nell, that was a long time ago and I did not know the Frau Doktorin in those days.