Kestrel (pronounced kes-truhl)
(1) In ornithological taxonomy, a common small falcon (especially the Falco
tinnunculus), of northern parts of the Eastern Hemisphere, notable for hovering
in the air with its head to the wind, its primary diet the small mammals it plucks
from the ground.
(2) Any of a number of related small falcons.
(3) A brand-name, used severally (initial upper case).
1400–1450: From the late Middle English castrell, from the Middle English castrel & staniel (bird of prey), from the Middle French cresserelle & quercerelle
(bird of prey), a variant of the Old French crecerelle,
from cressele (rattle; wooden reel),
from the unattested Vulgar Latin crepicella
& crepitacillum, a diminutive of crepitāculum (noisy bell; rattle), from the
Classical Latin crepitāre (to crackle,
to rattle), from crepāre (to rustle).
The connection with the Latin is undocumented and based on the folk belief their
noise frightened away other hawks. However,
some etymologists contest the connection with the Latin forms and suggest a more
likely source is a krek- or krak- (to crack, rattle, creak, emit a
bird cry), from the Middle Dutch crāken
(to creak, crack), from the Old Dutch krakōn
(to crack, creak, emit a cry), from the Proto-West Germanic krakōn, from the Proto-Germanic krakōną (to emit a cry, shout), from the
primitive Indo-European gerg- (to
shout). It was cognate with the Old High
German krahhōn (to make a sound,
crash), the Old English cracian (to
resound) and the French craquer (to
emit a repeated cry, used of birds). All
however concur the un-etymological -t- probably developed in French. Kestrel is a noun; the noun plural is
kestrels.
It was an intellectually clever way to attempt to remove vulgarity
from English but etymologists today give little credence to the theory, noting
that the undisputed French sources provide no support. It may be assumed kestrels came to be called windfuckers & fuckwinds because when displaying their expertise at hovering in
the air when facing into the wind, the movements of their bodies does make it
look as if airborne copulation is in progress.
Of note too is that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the same
disapprobation didn’t always attach to “fuck” which, although there was a long
history of meaning “fornication”, it had also been in figurative use to
describe anything from “plough furrows in a field” to “chop down a tree”. Fuck was from the Middle English fukken and probably of Germanic origin,
from either the Old English fuccian
or the Old Norse fukka, both from the
Proto-Germanic fukkōną, from the
primitive Indo-European pewǵ- (to strike, punch, stab). It was probably the
popularity of use as well as the related career as a general-purpose vulgar
intensifier which attracted such disapproval.
By 1795 it had been banished from all but the most disreputable
dictionaries, not to re-appear until the more permissive 1960s.
Fieseler Fi 156 Storch, Gran Sasso d'Italia massif, Italy, during the mission to rescue Mussolini from captivity, 12 September 1943. The Duce is sitting in the passenger compartment.
Windfucker thus became archaic but not wholly extinct
because it appears in at least one British World War II (1939-1945) diary entry
which invoked the folk-name for the bird to describe the German liaison &
communications aircraft, the Fieseler Fi 156 Storch (stork), famous for its
outstanding short take-off & landing (STOL) performance and low stalling speed of 30 mph (50
km/h) which enabled it almost to hover when faced into a headwind. The Storch’s ability to land in the length of
a cricket pitch (22 yards (20.12 m)) made it a useful platform for all sorts of
operations, the most famous of which was the daring landing on a mountain-top in
northern Italy to rescue the deposed Duce (Benito Mussolini, 1883-1945; Duce
(leader) & prime-minister of Italy 1922-1943). So short was the length of the strip of grass
available for take-off that even for a Storch it was touch & go (especially
with the Duce’s not inconsiderable weight added) but with inches to spare, the
little plane safely delivered its cargo.
Riley was one of the storied names of the British motor industry, beginning as a manufacturer of bicycles in 1896, an after some early experiments as early as 1899, sold its first range of cars in 1905. Success followed but so did troubles and by 1938, the company had been absorbed into the Nuffield organization. Production continued but in the post-war years, Riley joined Austin, Morris, Wolseley and MG as part of the British Motor Corporation (BMC) conglomerate and the unique features of the brand began to disappear, the descent to the era of “badge engineering” soon complete. The last Rileys were the Elf (a tarted-up Mini with a longer boot which was ascetically somehow wrong) and the Kestrel (a tarted-up Austin 1300), neither of which survived the great cull when BMC was absorbed by the doomed British Leyland, marque shuttered in 1969, never to return. The rights to the Riley brand name are now held by BMW which has never even hinted there may be a revival, their unhappy (and costly) experience with Rover presumably a cautionary tale still told in Bavaria.
Pre-war Riley Kestrels: 1938 1½ litre four-light Kestrel Sports Saloon (left), 1939 2½ litre Kestrel fixed head coupé (with post-war coachwork) (centre) and 1937 1½ litre 12/4 Kestrel Sprite Special Sports (right).
It was a shame because the pre-war cars in particular had
been stylish and innovative, noted for an unusual form of valve activation
which used twin camshafts mounted high in the block (thus not “overhead
camshafts (OHC)”) which provided the advantages of short pushrods &
optimized valve placement offered by the OHC arrangements without the weight
and complexity. Also of interest were
their pre-selector transmissions, a kind of semi-automatic gearbox. Among the most admired had been the 1½ & 2½ litre Kestrels (1934-1940), most of which wore built
with saloon coachwork in four or six-light configurations although there were
also fixed head (FHC) and drop head coupés (DHC) as well as a few special, lightweight
roadsters.
The Kestrel Beer Company's "Flying Kestrel", built by Webster Race Engineering.
Of
late, one 1935 Riley Kestrel has enjoyed an unusual afterlife. In 2020, Scotland’s Kestrel Beer Company
commissioned the UK’s Webster Race Engineering to create from one something to
use as a land speed record (LSR) contender.
Dubbed “Flying
Kestrel”, it’s powered by a turbocharged 2.5 litre (151 cubic inch) Audi
TSI inline-five attached to an Audi A6 manual transmission, the power delivered
to a Ford 9-inch differential, for decades a mainstay of drag-racing and anywhere
else big power and torque needs to be handled.
After setting seven records during a 2021 campaign, the Flying Kestrel returned
to Webster for fine-tuning including a new exhaust manifold, turbocharger
blanket, and nitrous system for boost and cooling, a key gaol to reduce
engine-bay heat. On the dynamometer, the
inline-five registered 991 horsepower (739 Kw) & 753 foot-pounds of torque
(1022 Nm) and thus configured an attempt will be made on 17 June 2024 to
achieve 200 (322 km/h). LSR vehicles
with much less power have often exceeded 200 mph but typically they have used
bodywork with aerodynamic properties more obviously suited for the
purpose. It’s not clear if Webster’s
Riley has been subject to much wind-tunnel testing but it may be assumed the
shape is far from ideal as an LSR competitor and for some runs it has been
fitted with rear fender skirts (spats), a trick in use since the 1920s.
Flying Kestrel with rear spats fitted during 2021 campaign. Note the holes in the fenders which were added, not as a weight-saving measure (a la the frame of the Mercedes-Benz SSKL (1929-1932)) but to reduce lift at speed, the fenders tending otherwise to act as "parachutes". The same technique was used by Zora Arkus-Duntov when trying to counter the alarming tendency of the front end of the Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport (GS, 1962-1964) to "take off" as it approached 150 mph (240 km/h). For reasons unrelated to aerodynamics, the GS programme proved abortive and of the planned run of 100-125 for homologation purposes, only five were built, all of which survived to become multi-million dollar collectables.
The spats are one of the rare instances where adding weight increases speed, attested by the tests conducted during the 1930s by Mercedes-Benz and Auto-Union, both factories using spats front and rear on their LSR vehicles, extending the use to road cars although later Mercedes-Benz would admit the 10% improvement claimed for the 1937 540K Autobahn-kurier (highway cruiser) was just “a calculation” and it’s suspected even this was more guesswork than math. Later, Jaguar’s evaluation of the ideal configuration to use when testing the 1949 XK120 (1948-1954) on Belgium roads revealed the rear spats added about 3-4 mph to top speed though they precluded the use of the lighter wire wheels and did increase the tendency of the brakes to overheat in severe use so, like many things in engineering, it was a trade-off. More significantly perhaps, when travelling at speeds around 200 mph, “lift” is an issue and one which has afflicted many cars which have adhered well to the road at lower speeds. Succinctly, the problem was in a 1971 interview explained by the General Motors’ (GM) engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov (1909-1996) who described the 1962-1967 (C2) Chevrolet Corvette as having “just enough lift to be a bad airplane.” At speed, it’s another trade-off: the desire to lower aerodynamic drag versus the need for sufficient downforce for the tyres to remain sufficiently in contact with the earth’s surface for a driver to retain control, those few square inches of rubber the difference between life & death, especially at around 200 mph. It’s hoped the “Flying Kestrel” proves a "windfucker" and lives up to the name figuratively, but not literally.
1935 Riley 1½ litre Kestrel (Chassis 22T 1238, Engine SL 4168) with custom coachwork (2004)
The intriguing mechanical specifications and the robust chassis has made the pre-war cars attractive candidates for re-bodying as an alternative to restoration. Not all approve of such things (the originality police are humorless puritans as uncompromising as any Ayatollah) but some outstanding coachwork has been fashioned, almost always the result of converting a saloon or limousine to a coupé, convertible or roadster. The 1935 1½ litre Kestrel above began life as a four-door saloon which was converted to a DHC during 2004 and the lines have been much-admired, recalling (obviously at a smaller scale) some of the special-bodied Mercedes-Benz SS (1928-1933), the more ostentatious of the larger Buccialis (1928-1933) and the Bugatti Royale (1927-1933).
A kestrel windfucking.
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