Tag Archives: Goodwood

Car Aerodynamics Beyond the Norm

When you look at any modern car, the aerodynamic design is always going to be advanced since reducing drag is key to fuel economy. However, you will also see a bunch of stuff that is designed to look like it is aerodynamically important, but it is really just styling. Vanes that look like they do a lot are common but the one that is always there is a diffuser. The shaping of the underside of the rear of the car is designed to look like it is there to increase downforce. The underside of the rest of the car is hardly tailored for downforce, so this is really a styling cue.

There are cars, where the aero is significant, though. The Festival of Speed at Goodwood included an Aston Martin Valkyrie. This is a car where aero really does matter. In these two shots, focus on a couple of areas. The rear of the car has quite a diffuser and this one is definitely functional. A combination of flow route either side of the centre of the vehicle combining and expanding to enhance the downforce under the car. Then look near the front wheels in the wider shot. The wheels are isolated with the flow coming around them and then back out of the sides. So much effort went into this design.

Photomerge Likes Weird Stuff

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The panorama merge function in Lightroom is usually pretty good. It can have some odd quirks, and the three different projections can produce very different results at times but, on the whole, I rely on it for my pano creation. Every once in a while, though, it catches me out. At the Festival of Speed, I did find myself using a longer lens to get elements of a shot with the intent of stitching them together later. Partly, this was because the crew was working around the car and I took shots when they were in different places to aim to have an unobscured car in the final shot.

It was the Red Bull RB17 where I was playing with this. When I went to stitch the images together, Lightroom gave an old result. Instead of either having the whole person or no person, it managed to have parts of them only in the shot. I decided to use Photoshop’s photo merge function instead, but it gave the same results. However, it did this by outputting layers with masks which were then editable. I was able to go into the shots and get rid of the bits I didn’t want while bringing out the bits I did. Some of the blending is not perfect in the revised versions but, for a quick solution, it works fine. If I needed to do more with the images, I would fix the flaws with more care.

The First Planes I Flew

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These photos are not too sharp I’m afraid. However, they are important to me. The summer of 1986 had me just outside Chichester learning to fly at the historic Goodwood Aerodrome. Along with a bunch of similarly aged lads, we were being taught the basics of aviation courtesy of HMG. It was an amazing summer and, since we were flying once or twice a day, we were learning very quickly. I soloed on the Friday of my first week there having never even been inside a light aircraft prior to the Monday.

At some point during the summer, I borrowed my Mum’s camera and took a few pictures of the PA-38 Tomahawks that the flying school operated. These are those planes. In the line up of the planes can be seen G-BGRL. This was the very first plane I flew and will always be a plane that I am fond of. The fence behind them had a hole for a while when one student got to close with his wingtip. It was redefined as a gate named after his student number. The club had a PA-28 which is I the background in which I was self loading cargo for a flight for a student needing some weight and a couple of Gazelles lived next door. That was an outstanding summer.

Goodwood Festival of Speed

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More from the archives today. Only once have I made the trip to the Goodwood Festival of Speed. For car enthusiasts, this is quite the event. An enormous variety of motor vehicles are on display and the drive them up the hill across the estate past the main house – a place I am quite familiar with having spent a summer living in the stable block around the corner. Oh how I wish they had done this when I was there!

My one trip would have probably been in 2003 shortly before leaving the UK. I only got a few photos but there are some rather unusual cars in the shots I did take. I thought that a few of you are in to cars and might be interested in what was there. Maybe some of you were there too? One day I will try and be back when it is on again and make another trip.