StarDestroyer.Net BBS

This is the thread to place machines, buildings or other manufactured doodahs which you REALLY hate the design of.




My nomination is:






The F-104 Starfighter.

Despite being possibly the coolest-looking plane in the universe, I hate it because:

1) The wing has a tiny aspect ratio and obscene wing loading.
2) As a result of that, it turns like a fast-moving brick and lands at dangerously high speeds.
3) As another result of that, the trailing vortices developed at the wingtips are very strong indeed. Coupled with the low aspect ratio and limited breadth of the wings, this gives a very inefficient wing design, which coupled with its already limited supply of fuel make it more short-legged than a duck.
4) The trailing vortices are so strong that other F 104s have to keep their distance when flying behind it, even on takeoff.... or they may crash.
5) The T-tail..... oh, the accursed T-tail. This is the most stupid thing in the world to put on a fighter. When that aircraft pulls any significant angle of attack, the breakaway turbulent airflow from the upper wings will cover the elevators, thus causing the pilot to lose all pitch control.
6) The fuel efficiency was so terrible that the stupid amount of external tanks shown above was necessary to keep it going for any distance at all.
7) It has one engine and one engine only. If this flames out, you might as well eject because it glides like a brick.
8 ) The design was so hopelessly bad that Lockheed had to bribe nations and political figures to accept it!!




Which is why, ladies and gentlemen, I hate the F-104 Starfighter.




You may show me designs which piss you off now.

The Rocky Mountain RM series mountain bikes, the RM6 and RM7 in particular.

This bike has the worst design I've ever seen, and it costs something like $2500 US.

The main problem is the suspension swingarm and linkage design, it breaks so many engineering rules it might as well have been designed by an arts student. Viewed from the top it looks something like a wishbone where the 2 legs are welded to the Y shaped part of the wishbone, and they do an end to end weld of the wishbone to the yoke part. So now you have an aluminum swingarm where the place with the highest stresses is right at a shitty weld, might as well have a "break here" label on it.

Also related to the swingarm design, it has horrible torsional stiffness. You could grab the top of the rear wheel and easily twist it side to side a couple inches, on the trail this translates to a bike that can't hold a line on bumpy ground.

The linkage system is also a pile of crap. The overall leverage ratio is roughly 4:1, so if you load the real wheel with 200 lbs the shock gets a load of 800 lbs, this is fine except for what happens in between. What happens is you have a 10:1 ratio on the swingarm to the doglink, which the rocker steps down to the overall 4:1 ratio. So now that 200 lbs load is a 2000 lbs load at the doglink, and the doglink bushing which is plastic by the way is also in the dirtiest part of the bike. That's a recipe for premature bushing failure if I've ever seen one.

Working in a bike shop as a mechanic, here's what I actually saw. The bushings would wear out within weeks and result in horrible play in the suspension. The rear wheel would have almost an inch of up & down play in them after a month of riding. There were lots of snapped swingarms, some of which resulted in injuries and the swingarms were recalled several times. They went through 3 versions of the swingarm before they fixed the breaking problem. They eventually had to change all the bushings over to sealed needle bearings to fix the play. The bike was also finiky and a bitch to work on, look at it wrong and it won't shift gears anymore. Biggest piece of shit I've ever seen.

I hate how most electric cars look like an electric car. I dont want a tiny car that looks like an egg. I saw one car on tv that does not have side view mirrors, in order to make it more aerodynamic. Instead it has little TV camera's to see behind you. OH FUCKING PLEASE! Two mirrors are not going to make the car a gas burner, but they are a way more reliable and simple way to see behind you. Has is ever occured to any of these designers that I need a second car just to get any real work done besides commuting.

The new hybrid Civic and other cars have it right. Take regular car body and make it a hybrid.

Aerius, that's a really fucked up bike

the design is the shittiest I've seen for a long time. I can't even fully understand how the rear suspension works. We have very few Rocky Mountains, here, so it's the first time I saw it.



Much better. My eyes are at rest, now.

The KM Bismarck and sister Tirpitz . Very possibly the worst new built battleships of WW2. Its fanwhores drive me insane.