Lister Motor Company
The Lister Motor Company Ltd. is a British sports car manufacturer founded by Brian Lister in 1954 in Cambridge, which became known for its involvement in motorsport. Sold in 1986, Laurence Pearce produced variants of the Jaguar XJS before producing a bespoke sports car, the Lister Storm. In 2013, Lister Cars was acquired by Lawrence Whittaker's company Warrantywise. Production of the original sports car restarted in 2014 and ten continuation Lister Jaguar Knobblys were built to celebrate Lister’s 60th Anniversary. In 2016, the company announced. On 31 January 2018, the Lister LFT-666 based on the Jaguar F-Type was announced. Beginning in 1954, company manager and racing driver Brian Lister brought out the first in a series of sports cars from a Cambridge iron works. Inspired by Cooper, he used de Dion rear axle and inboard drum brakes. Like others, he used a tuned MG stock gearbox, it made its debut at the British Empire Trophy at Oulton Park in 1954, with former MG driver Archie Scott Brown at the wheel.
Lister swapped in a Moore-tuned Bristol two-litre engine and knockoff wire wheels in place of the MG's discs to improve performance. For the sports car race supporting the 1954 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, Scott Brown won the two-litre class and placed fifth overall behind only works Aston Martins. In 1955, a handful of Lister-Bristols were built with a new body built by an ex-Bristol employee with the aid of a wind tunnel. Despite its new fins and strakes, it was less successful than the original Lister-Bristol of 1954. Lister moved up to a six-cylinder motor from a Formula 2 Maserati A6GCS for their own car, while customers continued to receive the Bristol motor, sold for ₤3900. Lister attempted single-seater racing with a multi-tube chassis powered by a Coventry-Climax motor and using an MG gearbox, but the car was a failure. For 1957, Lister redesigned the car around a 3.4 litre Jaguar D-type XK inline-six, with an aerodynamic aluminium body. It was tested by racing journalist John Bolster.
Driver Archie Scott Brown won the 1957 British Empire Trophy in the new Lister-Jaguar. Refined again in 1958, the Lister-Jaguar entered international competitions. Brown was killed that season. Lister developed another single-seater car based on the Lister-Jaguar, for use in the unique Race of Two Worlds at Monza. Cars from this era are affectionately known as the "Lister Knobbly" cars, due to their curved bodywork. For 1959, Lister hired aerodynamicist Frank Costin who produced new bodywork built around a new Chevrolet Corvette power plant. However, the front-engine layout of the new Lister-Chevrolet was eclipsed by the rear-engine layout of the new Cooper sports car. By the end of 1959 Lister withdrew from competition although production of sports cars continued for customers. In 1963, Brian Lister was chosen by the Rootes Group to prepare the Sunbeam Tiger for the prototype category of the 24 Hours of Le Mans; the Ford V8-powered Tiger was still in the early stages of development while Lister was constructing the chassis at the Jensen factory.
Lister upgraded the suspension and brakes, added an aerodynamic fastback hardtop with a more sloping windscreen and a Kamm tail. The 260 cu in Ford V8 engine was tuned by Carroll Shelby in order to allow it to produce 275 hp instead of the 160 hp in standard specification; the car was designed with a top speed of 170 mph in mind, but were developed in a short time frame and suffered engine failures. Rootes received a refund for the engines; the two cars and one prototype mule still exist. The failure of the cars and Rootes' bankruptcy led to the demise of Lister's tuning work as well; the Lister company returned in 1986 as Lister Cars Ltd. based in Leatherhead, with engineer Laurence Pearce tuning 90 Jaguar XJSs and improving their top speed to over 200 mph, with an asking price of over £100,000. Success at this endeavour led the newly formed company to design the Lister Storm. Launched in 1993, it would use the largest V12 engine fitted to a production car at that time, a 7.0 L unit derived from the Jaguar XJR9.
The Storm was developed for motorsport in various guises, winning the FIA GT Championship in 2000. Lister developed a bespoke Le Mans Prototype, the Storm LMP in 2003. In 2012, Lawrence Whittaker and his father visited the Lister factory to source parts when restoring a Lister Knobbly, the opportunity to purchase the Lister Motor Company arose. In 2013, ownership of George Lister Engineering Limited of Cambridge, original intellectual property rights, the plans and drawings for all original Lister cars, as well as the property rights of Pearce's Lister Cars were bought by father and son Andrew and Lawrence Whittaker, who own car warranty company Warrantywise; the new company, along with its associated partners, was rebranded as the Lister Motor Company Ltd. Ten months the Lister Motor Company announced the build and sale of the Lister Knobbly to mark 60 years since the first Lister Racing Car was built; the new company started building of the original Lister designs in 2014. To celebrate the 60th Anniversary of The Lister Motor Company, the release of the Lister Knobbly was announced, described as the most successful racing car of the late 1950s.
The Lister Knobbly was driven by some of the most notable racing car drivers of the 50s including: Archie Scott Brown, Stirling Moss, Ivor Beaub, Bruce Halford and Innes Ireland amongst many others. Within a matter of weeks half of the 60th Anniversary Lister race cars were sold
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Incorporated d/b/a OCLC is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs". It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the largest online public access catalog in the world. OCLC is funded by the fees that libraries have to pay for its services. OCLC maintains the Dewey Decimal Classification system. OCLC began in 1967, as the Ohio College Library Center, through a collaboration of university presidents, vice presidents, library directors who wanted to create a cooperative computerized network for libraries in the state of Ohio; the group first met on July 5, 1967 on the campus of the Ohio State University to sign the articles of incorporation for the nonprofit organization, hired Frederick G. Kilgour, a former Yale University medical school librarian, to design the shared cataloging system.
Kilgour wished to merge the latest information storage and retrieval system of the time, the computer, with the oldest, the library. The plan was to merge the catalogs of Ohio libraries electronically through a computer network and database to streamline operations, control costs, increase efficiency in library management, bringing libraries together to cooperatively keep track of the world's information in order to best serve researchers and scholars; the first library to do online cataloging through OCLC was the Alden Library at Ohio University on August 26, 1971. This was the first online cataloging by any library worldwide. Membership in OCLC is based on use of services and contribution of data. Between 1967 and 1977, OCLC membership was limited to institutions in Ohio, but in 1978, a new governance structure was established that allowed institutions from other states to join. In 2002, the governance structure was again modified to accommodate participation from outside the United States.
As OCLC expanded services in the United States outside Ohio, it relied on establishing strategic partnerships with "networks", organizations that provided training and marketing services. By 2008, there were 15 independent United States regional service providers. OCLC networks played a key role in OCLC governance, with networks electing delegates to serve on the OCLC Members Council. During 2008, OCLC commissioned two studies to look at distribution channels. In early 2009, OCLC negotiated new contracts with the former networks and opened a centralized support center. OCLC provides bibliographic and full-text information to anyone. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat—the OCLC Online Union Catalog, the largest online public access catalog in the world. WorldCat has holding records from private libraries worldwide; the Open WorldCat program, launched in late 2003, exposed a subset of WorldCat records to Web users via popular Internet search and bookselling sites.
In October 2005, the OCLC technical staff began a wiki project, WikiD, allowing readers to add commentary and structured-field information associated with any WorldCat record. WikiD was phased out; the Online Computer Library Center acquired the trademark and copyrights associated with the Dewey Decimal Classification System when it bought Forest Press in 1988. A browser for books with their Dewey Decimal Classifications was available until July 2013; until August 2009, when it was sold to Backstage Library Works, OCLC owned a preservation microfilm and digitization operation called the OCLC Preservation Service Center, with its principal office in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The reference management service QuestionPoint provides libraries with tools to communicate with users; this around-the-clock reference service is provided by a cooperative of participating global libraries. Starting in 1971, OCLC produced catalog cards for members alongside its shared online catalog. OCLC commercially sells software, such as CONTENTdm for managing digital collections.
It offers the bibliographic discovery system WorldCat Discovery, which allows for library patrons to use a single search interface to access an institution's catalog, database subscriptions and more. OCLC has been conducting research for the library community for more than 30 years. In accordance with its mission, OCLC makes its research outcomes known through various publications; these publications, including journal articles, reports and presentations, are available through the organization's website. OCLC Publications – Research articles from various journals including Code4Lib Journal, OCLC Research, Reference & User Services Quarterly, College & Research Libraries News, Art Libraries Journal, National Education Association Newsletter; the most recent publications are displayed first, all archived resources, starting in 1970, are available. Membership Reports – A number of significant reports on topics ranging from virtual reference in libraries to perceptions about library funding. Newsletters – Current and archived newsletters for the library and archive community.
Presentations – Presentations from both guest speakers and OCLC research from conferences and other events. The presentations are organized into five categories: Conference presentations, Dewey presentations, Distinguished Seminar Series, Guest presentations, Research staff
International Standard Serial Number
An International Standard Serial Number is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSN are used in ordering, interlibrary loans, other practices in connection with serial literature; the ISSN system was first drafted as an International Organization for Standardization international standard in 1971 and published as ISO 3297 in 1975. ISO subcommittee TC 46/SC 9 is responsible for maintaining the standard; when a serial with the same content is published in more than one media type, a different ISSN is assigned to each media type. For example, many serials are published both in electronic media; the ISSN system refers to these types as electronic ISSN, respectively. Conversely, as defined in ISO 3297:2007, every serial in the ISSN system is assigned a linking ISSN the same as the ISSN assigned to the serial in its first published medium, which links together all ISSNs assigned to the serial in every medium.
The format of the ISSN is an eight digit code, divided by a hyphen into two four-digit numbers. As an integer number, it can be represented by the first seven digits; the last code digit, which may be 0-9 or an X, is a check digit. Formally, the general form of the ISSN code can be expressed as follows: NNNN-NNNC where N is in the set, a digit character, C is in; the ISSN of the journal Hearing Research, for example, is 0378-5955, where the final 5 is the check digit, C=5. To calculate the check digit, the following algorithm may be used: Calculate the sum of the first seven digits of the ISSN multiplied by its position in the number, counting from the right—that is, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, respectively: 0 ⋅ 8 + 3 ⋅ 7 + 7 ⋅ 6 + 8 ⋅ 5 + 5 ⋅ 4 + 9 ⋅ 3 + 5 ⋅ 2 = 0 + 21 + 42 + 40 + 20 + 27 + 10 = 160 The modulus 11 of this sum is calculated. For calculations, an upper case X in the check digit position indicates a check digit of 10. To confirm the check digit, calculate the sum of all eight digits of the ISSN multiplied by its position in the number, counting from the right.
The modulus 11 of the sum must be 0. There is an online ISSN checker. ISSN codes are assigned by a network of ISSN National Centres located at national libraries and coordinated by the ISSN International Centre based in Paris; the International Centre is an intergovernmental organization created in 1974 through an agreement between UNESCO and the French government. The International Centre maintains a database of all ISSNs assigned worldwide, the ISDS Register otherwise known as the ISSN Register. At the end of 2016, the ISSN Register contained records for 1,943,572 items. ISSN and ISBN codes are similar in concept. An ISBN might be assigned for particular issues of a serial, in addition to the ISSN code for the serial as a whole. An ISSN, unlike the ISBN code, is an anonymous identifier associated with a serial title, containing no information as to the publisher or its location. For this reason a new ISSN is assigned to a serial each time it undergoes a major title change. Since the ISSN applies to an entire serial a new identifier, the Serial Item and Contribution Identifier, was built on top of it to allow references to specific volumes, articles, or other identifiable components.
Separate ISSNs are needed for serials in different media. Thus, the print and electronic media versions of a serial need separate ISSNs. A CD-ROM version and a web version of a serial require different ISSNs since two different media are involved. However, the same ISSN can be used for different file formats of the same online serial; this "media-oriented identification" of serials made sense in the 1970s. In the 1990s and onward, with personal computers, better screens, the Web, it makes sense to consider only content, independent of media; this "content-oriented identification" of serials was a repressed demand during a decade, but no ISSN update or initiative occurred. A natural extension for ISSN, the unique-identification of the articles in the serials, was the main demand application. An alternative serials' contents model arrived with the indecs Content Model and its application, the digital object identifier, as ISSN-independent initiative, consolidated in the 2000s. Only in 2007, ISSN-L was defined in the
Tony Vandervell
Guy Anthony "Tony" Vandervell was an English industrialist, motor racing financier, founder of the Vanwall Formula One racing team. Vandervell was the son of Charles Vandervell, founder of CAV Lucas CAV, he made his fortune from the production of Thin-Wall bearings, under licence from the American inventor, by his company Vandervell Products. Having raced both motorcycles and cars a number of times in his younger days, soon after the end of World War II he acquired a Ferrari 125, powered by a 1.5-litre Colombo engine, altered by his mechanics and competed as the Thinwall Special, reflecting Vandervell's business empire. This was intended to be run as an evaluation of the Thinwall bearing, to be used as a research exercise by British Racing Motors. To that end, the car was a success, Vandervell provided a detailed critique of the car's flaws back to Enzo Ferrari himself. Between 1949 and 1953, there were four different Thinwall Specials. Though one of the first financial backers of BRM, Vandervell became disenchanted at the way in which Raymond Mays was running the team and in 1951, after the second Ferrari-based Thinwall Special had been evaluated, he decided to go his own way.
He started to build a team, based in his Acton factory, that would be capable of designing and running its own 2.5L Formula One entry in 1954. Vandervell was nothing if not ambitious and brought in both Norton and Rolls-Royce as engine consultants. In the intervening years two more Ferraris found themselves transformed into Thinwall machines acting as rolling test-beds for innovative components such as Dunlop disc brakes. On completion of the engine, it was decided to run it in a chassis commissioned from the Cooper Car Company. Designed by Owen Maddock, the chassis was delivered to Vandervell in early 1954; this car – the Vanwall Special, a portmanteau of Vandervell's and his product's names – was entered into the non-championship International Trophy race on 15 May. It wasn't until July that the car had its first World Championship outing in the 1954 British Grand Prix, driven by Peter Collins, where it failed to finish; the car competed in two further races that season, finishing 7th in Italy, but Collins wrapped it around a tree in practice for the season-closing Spanish Grand Prix.
Vandervell reinforced his renamed Vanwall team for 1955, bringing in Mike Hawthorn and Ken Wharton as drivers, but only scored minor victories in the two newly constructed machines. In 1956 Vandervell drafted in Frank Costin and Harry Weslake on the engineering side. Over the brief duration of his involvement with the sport, it was this ability to spot new talent that marked Vandervell out as one of the most successful and influential F1 team owners; the 1956 car, built in-house, took Vanwall's first major victory in the International Trophy early in the year, in the hands of Stirling Moss. The rest of the season failed to live up to this early promise. Moss was joined by Tony Brooks for the 1957 Formula One season, the pair shared Vanwall's first World Championship victory in the 1957 British Grand Prix. Moss took two further victories that season, laying a foundation for the team's zenith year: 1958; the Vanwall team won six of the 1958 Formula One season's eleven races and Brooks sharing with three apiece.
Good driving by the whole team, including third driver Stuart Lewis-Evans, won Vanwall the Constructors' Championship, beating BRM to this milestone by four years. However, this spread of points among the team allowed Hawthorn, by in a Ferrari, to snatch the Drivers' Championship from Moss by just 1 point. Sadly, the achievement was clouded by the death of Stuart Lewis-Evans from burns sustained in an accident at the Moroccan Grand Prix. Increasing age and the strains of running a high-profile sporting team had taken its toll on Tony Vandervell's health. Vandervell had been affected by Lewis-Evans's death, in January 1959 he announced that he would not be continuing with the team; the loss of Vandervell's drive and money crippled Vanwall, the team never again won a World Championship race. Vanwall struggled on with a new car in 1959; the same vehicle was run in non-championship events in 1960, but after 1961 when Lotus experimented with a Vanwall engine in one of their chassis, the Vanwall name disappeared from F1.
The last Vanwall car was built to Intercontinental Formula rules for John Surtees in 1962. This series was unsuccessful and Vanwall folded for good, fewer than four years after their world domination. Tony Vandervell withdrew from public life after leaving Vanwall, he died in March 1967. Just seven weeks earlier he had married Marian Moore. Vandervell donated a large sum of money to the Royal College of Surgeons to establish a chair, he implemented a complex tax avoidance scheme. He instructed a bank, orally, to transfer complete ownership of 100,000 A-shares in his company, Vandervell Products, which they held on bare trust for him to the RCS and asked the RCS to grant an option to purchase the shares to his trust company, Vandervell Trustees, he instructed the VP to declare a dividend on the shares. The purpose of this was to avoid paying stamp duty by a written declaration of disposition of equitable ownership, to avoid any liability for Vandervell to pay surtax on the dividends since the RCS was a charity and thus not liable to pay tax.
This led to a leading case in English trusts law, Vandervell v Inland Revenue Commissioners 2 AC 291. For Vandervell, his tax avoidance scheme was not successful. In respect of the s
Aeronautics
Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study and manufacturing of air flight capable machines, the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere. The British Royal Aeronautical Society identifies the aspects of "aeronautical Art and Engineering" and "the profession of Aeronautics." While the term referred to operating the aircraft, it has since been expanded to include technology and other aspects related to aircraft. The term "aviation" is sometimes used interchangeably with aeronautics, although "aeronautics" includes lighter-than-air craft such as airships, includes ballistic vehicles while "aviation" technically does not. A significant part of aeronautical science is a branch of dynamics called aerodynamics, which deals with the motion of air and the way that it interacts with objects in motion, such as an aircraft. Attempts to fly without any real aeronautical understanding have been made from the earliest times by constructing wings and jumping from a tower with crippling or lethal results.
Wiser investigators sought to gain some rational understanding through the study of bird flight. An early example appears in ancient Egyptian texts. Medieval Islamic scientists made such studies; the founders of modern aeronautics, Leonardo da Vinci in the Renaissance and Cayley in 1799, both began their investigations with studies of bird flight. Man-carrying kites are believed to have been used extensively in ancient China. In 1282 the European explorer Marco Polo described the Chinese techniques current; the Chinese constructed small hot air balloons, or lanterns, rotary-wing toys. An early European to provide any scientific discussion of flight was Roger Bacon, who described principles of operation for the lighter-than-air balloon and the flapping-wing ornithopter, which he envisaged would be constructed in the future; the lifting medium for his balloon would be an "aether". In the late fifteenth century, Leonardo da Vinci followed up his study of birds with designs for some of the earliest flying machines, including the flapping-wing ornithopter and the rotating-wing helicopter.
Although his designs were rational, they were not based on good science. Many of his designs, such as a four-person screw-type helicopter, have severe flaws, he did at least understand that "An object offers as much resistance to the air as the air does to the object." His analysis led to the realisation that manpower alone was not sufficient for sustained flight, his designs included a mechanical power source such as a spring. Da Vinci's work was lost after his death and did not reappear until it had been overtaken by the work of George Cayley; the modern era of lighter-than-air flight began early in the 17th century with Galileo's experiments in which he showed that air has weight. Around 1650 Cyrano de Bergerac wrote some fantasy novels in which he described the principle of ascent using a substance he supposed to be lighter than air, descending by releasing a controlled amount of the substance. Francesco Lana de Terzi measured the pressure of air at sea level and in 1670 proposed the first scientifically credible lifting medium in the form of hollow metal spheres from which all the air had been pumped out.
These would be able to lift an airship. His proposed methods of controlling height are still in use today. In practice de Terzi's spheres would have collapsed under air pressure, further developments had to wait for more practicable lifting gases. From the mid-18th century the Montgolfier brothers in France began experimenting with balloons, their balloons were made of paper, early experiments using steam as the lifting gas were short-lived due to its effect on the paper as it condensed. Mistaking smoke for a kind of steam, they began filling their balloons with hot smoky air which they called "electric smoke" and, despite not understanding the principles at work, made some successful launches and in 1783 were invited to give a demonstration to the French Académie des Sciences. Meanwhile, the discovery of hydrogen led Joseph Black in c. 1780 to propose its use as a lifting gas, though practical demonstration awaited a gas tight balloon material. On hearing of the Montgolfier Brothers' invitation, the French Academy member Jacques Charles offered a similar demonstration of a hydrogen balloon.
Charles and two craftsmen, the Robert brothers, developed a gas tight material of rubberised silk for the envelope. The hydrogen gas was to be generated by chemical reaction during the filling process; the Montgolfier designs had several shortcomings, not least the need for dry weather and a tendency for sparks from the fire to set light to the paper balloon. The manned design had a gallery around the base of the balloon rather than the hanging basket of the first, unmanned design, which brought the paper closer to the fire. On their free flight, De Rozier and d'Arlandes took buckets of water and sponges to douse these fires as they arose. On the other hand, the manned design of Charles was modern; as a result of these exploits, the hot-air balloon became known as the Montgolfière type and the hydrogen balloon the Charlière. Charles and the Robert brothers' next balloon, La Caroline, was a Charlière that followed Jean Baptiste Meusnier's proposals for an elongated dirigible balloon, was notable for having an outer envelope with the gas contained in a second, inner ballonet.
On 19 September 1784, it completed the first flight of over 100 km, between Pa
Lotus Mark VIII
The Lotus Mark VIII car was Colin Chapman’s first enclosed aerodynamic design. Chapman's basic requirements for the design were for a car of 1100 lbs powered by an 85 bhp engine and a maximum speed of 125 mph. Work began on this design in late 1953 and Chapman was assisted in the design of the body by the aerodynamicist Frank Costin, the brother of Mike Costin, his main collaborator; the spaceframe chassis for the Mark VIII has been described as "the most nearly perfect sports car chassis". This was Lotus' first true spaceframe and relied on the aircraft experience of Peter Ross and Gilbert McIntosh. Light and stiff, the frame consisted of only nineteen members and was triangulated. However, from a practical point of view, the frame had limitations regarding maintenance; the spaceframe retained the divided front axle independent suspension that Chapman had employed on his earlier cars, used a de Dion layout with inboard brakes at the rear. A modified MG 1500 cc engine and transmission were installed, a stressed undertray further stiffened the chassis.
In its first race at Oulton Park, Chapman set the fastest lap of the day in Mark VIII prototype, designated P3, but had to retire because of a blown head gasket. However, at the next race at Silverstone Chapman won the 1,500 cc. class outright. It was at a subsequent meeting of the RAC British Grand Prix at Silverstone, on 17 July 1954, where the reputation of Lotus cars was made, as Chapman in the Lotus Mark VIII and Peter Gammon in the Mark VI beat the works quad-cam Porsche driven by Hans Herrmann, again winning the class; the Mark VIII was a precursor to the aerodynamic Lotus cars. The Lotus Mark X was an aluminium-bodied sports racing car manufactured by Lotus Engineering Ltd; the Mark X, of which only 6 or 7 were made, was identical to the Mark VIII but made use of the larger 2.0-litre Bristol engine. The Mark VIII, Mark IX and Mark X were transitional forms, although they represent the first full bodied aerodynamic Lotus sports cars and made use of the De Dion tube as a rear suspension locator, together with inboard rear brakes.
The more successful Lotus Eleven, of which 270 were manufactured between 1956 and 1958, was the direct descendant of these earlier cars. The earlier cars are today considered rare and valued collectible automobiles — museum pieces — but can still be seen raced in vintage events. Costin and Phipps, David and Sports Car Chassis Design, 1962, Robert Bentley, Inc. pp. 26–29. Coulter, The Lotus & Caterham Seven: A Collector's Guide Motor Racing Publications, 1986. P 10. "The Lotus Story" Cars Illustrated, 1964, Reprinted in "Lotus Sports Racers" Unique Motor Books, Hockley Essex England p165-168. Tipler, John and Caterham Seven: Racers for the Road The Crowood Press, 1995. Pp. 16–17
Monocoque
Monocoque structural skin, is a structural system where loads are supported through an object's external skin, similar to an egg shell. The word monocoque is a French term for "single shell" or "single hull". First used in boats, a true monocoque carries both tensile and compressive forces within the skin and can be recognised by the absence of a load-carrying internal frame. Few metal aircraft can be regarded as pure monocoques, as they use a metal shell or sheeting reinforced with frames riveted to the skin, but most of the wooden aircraft are described as monocoques though they incorporate frames. By contrast, a semi-monocoque is a hybrid combining a tensile stressed skin and a compressive structure made up of longerons and ribs or frames. Other semi-monocoques, not to be confused with true monocoques, include vehicle unibodies, which tend to be composites, inflatable shells or balloon tanks, both of which are pressure stabilised; the term is misused as a marketing term for structures built up from hollow components.
Early aircraft were constructed using frames of wood or steel tubing, which could be covered with fabric such as Irish linen or cotton. The fabric made a minor structural contribution in tension but none in compression and was there for aerodynamic reasons only. By considering the structure as a whole and not just the sum of its parts, monocoque construction integrated the skin and frame into a single load-bearing shell with significant improvements to strength and weight. To make the shell, thin strips of wood were laminated into a three dimensional shape. One of the earliest examples was the Deperdussin Monocoque racer in 1912, which used a laminated fuselage made up of three layers of glued poplar veneer, which provided both the external skin and the main load-bearing structure; this produced a smoother surface and reduced drag so that it was able to win most of the races it was entered into. This style of construction was further developed in Germany by LFG Roland using the patented Wickelrumpf form licensed by them to Pfalz Flugzeugwerke who used it on several fighter aircraft.
Each half of the fuselage shell was formed over a male mold using two layers of plywood strips with fabric wrapping between them. The early plywood used was prone to damage from delamination. While all-metal aircraft such as the Junkers J 1 had appeared as early as 1915, these were not monocoques but added a metal skin to an underlying framework; the first metal monocoques were built by Claudius Dornier. He had to overcome a number of problems, not least was the quality of aluminium alloys strong enough to use as structural materials, which formed layers instead of presenting a uniform material. After failed attempts with several large flying boats in which a few components were monocoques, he built the Zeppelin-Lindau V1 to test out a monocoque fuselage. Although it crashed, he learned a lot from its construction; the Dornier-Zeppelin D. I was built in 1918 and although too late for operational service during the war was the first all metal monocoque aircraft to enter production. In parallel to Dornier, Zeppelin employed Adolf Rohrbach, who built the Zeppelin-Staaken E-4/20, which when it flew in 1920 became the first multi-engined monocoque airliner, before being destroyed under orders of the Inter-Allied Commission.
At the end of WWI, the Inter-Allied Technical Commission published details of the last Zeppelin-Lindau flying boat showing its monocoque construction. In the UK, Oswald Short built a number of experimental aircraft with metal monocoque fuselages starting with the 1920 Short Silver Streak in an attempt to convince the air ministry of its superiority over wood. Despite advantages, aluminium alloy monocoques would not become common until the mid 1930s as a result of a number of factors, including design conservatism and production setup costs. Short would prove the merits of the construction method with a series of flying boats, whose metal hulls didn't absorb water as the wooden hulls did improving performance. In the United States, Northrop was a major pioneer, introducing techniques used by his own company and Douglas with the Northrop Alpha. In motor racing, the safety of the driver depends on the car body which must meet stringent regulations and only a few cars have been built with monocoque structures.
An aluminum alloy monocoque chassis was first used in the 1962 Lotus 25 Formula 1 race car and McLaren was the first to use carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers to construct the monocoque of the 1981 McLaren MP4/1. In 1992 the McLaren F1 became the first production car with a carbon-fiber monocoque; the term monocoque is misapplied to unibody cars. Commercial car bodies are never true monocoques but instead use the unibody system, which uses box sections and tubes to provide most of the strength of the vehicle, while the skin adds little strength or stiffness; some armoured fighting vehicles use a monocoque structure with a body shell built up from armour plates, rather than attaching them to a frame. This reduces weight for a given amount of armour. Examples include the German TPz Fuchs and RG-33. French industrialist and engineer Georges Roy attempted in the 1920s to improve on the bicycle-inspired motorcycle frames of the day, which lacked rigidity; this limited their handling and therefore performance.
He applied for a patent in 1926, at the 1929 Paris Automotive Show unveiled his new motorcycle, the Art-Deco styled 1930 Majestic. Its new type of monocoque body solved the p
