Fuselage pronounced fyoo-suh-lahzh,
fyoo-suh-lij, fyoo-zuh-lahzh or fyoo-suh-lahzh)
(1) In
aeronautical design, the complete central structure of an airplane, to which are
attached the wings (or rotors), tail and other stabilizing fins or surfaces (engines
sometimes also directly attached or enclosed).
It is inside the fuselage where the crew, passengers, cargo and most
internals systems are located.
(2) In
design, a style which borrows from or alludes to the elements used in aircraft
fuselages.
(3) By
extension, the main body of an aerospace vehicle
1909 (In English): From
the French fuselage, the construct
being fusel(é) (spindle-shaped), from
fuseler (to shape like a spindle), from
the Old French fus or fuseau (spindle),
from the Latin fusus (spindle) + -age. The French suffix -age
was from the Middle & Old French -age,
from the Latin -āticum, (greatly)
extended from words like rivage and voyage.
It was used usually to form nouns with the sense of (1) "action or
result of Xing" or (more rarely), "action related to X" or (2)
"state of being (a or an) X".
A less common use was the formation of collective nouns. Historically, there were many applications
(family relationships, locations et al) but use has long tended to be
restricted to the sense of "action of Xing". Many older terms now have little to no
connection with their most common modern uses, something particularly notable
of those descended from actual Latin words (fromage,
voyage et al). In English, the suffix -age was from the
Middle English -age, from the Old
French -age, from the Latin -āticum.
Cognates include the French -age,
the Italian -aggio, the Portuguese -agem, the Spanish -aje & Romanian -aj. It was used to form nouns (1) with the sense
of collection or appurtenance, (2) indicating a process, action, or a result,
(3) of a state or relationship, (4) indicating a place, (5) indicating a
charge, toll, or fee, (6) indicating a rate & (7) of a unit of measure. Fuselage is a noun &
adjective; the noun plural is fuselages.
Many
languages also borrowed fuselage but there were sometimes variations in
spelling including in Catalan (fuselatge),
Portuguese (fuselagem), Spanish
(fuselaje), Russian (fjuzeljáž (фюзеля́ж)), Kazakh (füzeläj (фюзеляж)) and Ukrainian (fjuzeljáž (фюзеля́ж)). It’s not clear when “fuselage” was first used in
English, the earliest known reference dating from 1909 but it’s not improbable
the word had earlier been in oral use.
The alternative was presumably “hull” (the body or frame of shop, boat
or other such vessel). Hull was from the
Middle English hul, hulle & holle (seed covering, hull of a ship),
from the Old English hulu (seed
covering), from the Proto-Germanic hul-
(and related to the Dutch hul (hood)
and the German Hülle & Hülse (cover, veil)), and may have been
from either the primitive Indo-European forms ḱel- (to cover, hide) or kal- (hard). Hull came into wide
use in aircraft design when “flying boats” were developed.
Flying boats:
Short S.25 Sunderland (1938-1946) (left) and Dornier Do X (1929-1932) (right).
Most
aeroplanes have fuselages; flying boats have hulls, a tribute to the nautical
part of their hybrid origin. Commercially,
flying boats were widely used during the inter-war years because of their range
and, needing only a suitable body of water (sea, lake, river), their ability to
operate in regions without suitable aerodromes.
A vital military machine during World War II (1939-1945), the advances
in aircraft design during that conflict, coupled with the proliferation of airstrip
construction able to be re-purposed for civil use doomed them for all but some
specialist uses. Quickly they almost
vanished from European and (most) North American skies and waterways, enduring
in the Far East only until infrastructure there too was improved.
The fuselage can be optional: Dunne D.5 (1908) (left), Northrop YB-49 prototype (1947) (centre) and Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit (1989) (right).
In the early days of aviation, before even an airplane had flown the English Channel, designers had been intrigued when their slide-rule calculations suggested the optimal shape of a flying machine was a "flying wing" with no conventional fuselage and certainly no tail-plane apparatus. Tests of scale models in primitive wind tunnels proved the math was substantially correct and proof of concept tests using an unpowered glider proved inconclusive, it being clear only a powered flight would demonstrate if such a design could achieve stable flight. When tested, the designer admitted an early, under-powered, version was "more a hopper than a flyer" but when fitted with more powerful engines, the "flying wings" proved remarkably stable. However, more conventional designs proved more suitable for military use and that, increasingly was where the source of funding was to be found. Despite that, the idea continued to fascinate designers and a flying wing was one of the extraordinary range of experimental aircraft under development in Nazi Germany during World War II, most of which never made any contribution to the Luftwaffe's war effort. In the US, Northrop built both propeller and jet-powered prototypes in the 1940s and after early difficulties, a stable platform emerged although, like most designs, it both offered advantages and imposed restrictions but the whole project was cancelled; ever since some have argued this was due to political influence while others claim the flaws in the concept were so fundamental they couldn't be fixed. The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit (in service with the US Air Force (USAF) until at least 2034) is a modified version of a flying wing in that its really a variation of a delta with an integrated fuselage.
Ascending the stairs: Lindsay Lohan entering a fuselage, Mykonos, Greece, August 2016.
In the
early days of aviation during the twentieth century’s first decade, French
engineers and inventors were the most innovative on the planet and this is
reflected in the world-wide adoption of many French terms for some of the bits
and pieces which continue to be used.
English, rarely inclined to create a new word if there was a manageable one
in some other language which could be absorbed (“borrowed” still the term
etymologists, strangely perhaps, prefer) and the French words which formed the
basis of the early lexicon of aviation are a particular example of
technological determinism in language.
Other orthodox terms in aviation include:
Aileron: A hinged flight-control surface usually
attached to the trailing edge of each wing and used to change the roll (ie
cause fuselage to begin rotation).
Although the word “flaps” is commonly used of ailerons, the flaps are
usually positioned closer to the fuselage and are used to increase or reduce lift
& drag. The flap-like devices mounted
on the trailing edges of the vertical stabilizers (somewhere in the tail-section) are properly called “elevators”.
Aileron was a diminutive of aile
(wing) and before powered flight (flying machines) had been used in ornithology
to refer to the extremities of a bird's wings used to control their flight. There is an entry in a French-English dictionary
dating from 1877 (with the lead meaning: “small wing”) and in the context of
the language of aviation, the earliest known use in entry in French technical
literature is from 1908.
Empennage: The tail assembly of an
aircraft, including the horizontal and vertical stabilizers, elevators, and
rudder. Empennage was from the French empenner
(to feather an arrow).
Chassis: This was the original term used in English to describe
the framework of an aircraft but soon was replaced by "frame, structure etc"),
presumably because of the association with the heavy steel constructions used
in cars and trucks, things far removed from the lightweight designs needed in
the air. Chassis was from the French chassis
(frame, supporting structure), from châsse
(reliquary; coffin), from the Latin capsa
(case).
Concours
d'Elegance: Not strictly an aviation term and most associated with affairs like
those in Pebble Beach where rows of vintage Bentleys, Ferraris and such (the
latter always in a much better state of finish than when they left the factory)
are judged for their closeness to perfection.
Although not strictly a term from aviation, there are such events for
old aircraft. Concours d'Elegance was
from the French concours d'élégance (competition
of elegance).
Pilot: Pilot was from the Middle French pilot & pillot, from the Italian pilota
& piloto, (pedotta, pedot & pedotto the older forms), the pil- element probably influenced by pileggiare (to sail, navigate), ultimately
from the unattested Byzantine Greek *πηδώτης (pēdṓtēs) (helmsman), from the Ancient Greek πηδόν (pēdón) (blade of an oar, oar) (the the Ancient
and Modern Greek πηδάλιον (pēdálion)
(rudder). Familiar from nautical use,
pilot was a straight borrowing for the person fulfilling the same function in
the air. The construct of pilotage was
pilot + -age.
Canard: A type of aircraft configuration where the
tail-plane is ahead of the main lifting surfaces. In aviation, a canard is either (1) a type of
aircraft in which the primary horizontal control and stabilization surfaces are
in front of the main wing or (2) a horizontal control and stabilization surface
located in front of the main wing of an aircraft (a fore-plane). In just about any form of engineering involving
movement and fluid dynamics (air, plasma, water etc), a canard is a small,
wing-like structure used usually as a stabilizing device. Canard was from the French canard (duck, hoax) and in English as “a
canard”, is still used in that sense to mean “a false or misleading report or
story, especially if deliberately so”.
The Fuselage Chryslers, 1968-1973
1969 Imperial LeBaron, four-door hardtop.
The “fuselage”
Chryslers were released late in 1968 for the 1969 model year and, as a class,
remain the largest regular production cars ever made by the US industry. In the catalogue between 1968-1973, by the
end of their run the Imperial was built on a 127 inch (3226 mm) wheelbase, was
235 ½ (5981 mm) inches in length and almost 80 (2022 mm) inches in width. Big cars from Detroit were not uncommon in
the 1960s (Buick in 1959 even naming their top-of-the-range model the Electra 225,
a tribute to its 225 inch (5715 mm) length) but even by those standards the fuselage
cars not only were vast but the bulbous shape (source of the “fuselage” tag)
made them appear more excessive still; it wasn’t only for the big Chryslers the derisive “land yacht” was
coined but the line exemplified the idea.
In fairness, the trend generally was “longer, heavier
& fatter”, even once compact (by US standards) and agile machines like Ford’s
Mustang and Thunderbird bloating with each update although the manufacturers
were aware there was considerable public demand for something smaller and by
the late 1960s, those in the pipelines were well-advanced. However, demand for the full-sized cars
remained strong and Chrysler decided their lines should be more full-sized than
ever, thus the fuselage design. There
was at the time a bit of an aeronautical influence about and that was nothing
new, jet aircraft and space rockets during the previous two decades having
contributed many of the motifs which appeared on US cars. During the development cycle for the fuselage
cars, Chrysler were well-acquainted with the appearance of the Boeing 747, sketches
circulating for some three years before its first public appearance in
September 1968, coincidently just days after the Chrysler’s debuted. In its appearance, the bulging 747 was the
same sort of departure from the earlier, slender 707 as the 1969 Chryslers were from their rectilinear predecessors.
1969 Chrysler 300 advertising. In graphics & text, the "fuselage" motif was integral to the promotion; it was no mere nickname.
In some
ways the styling has aged surprisingly well because the basic lines are
uncluttered and, particularly on the higher priced editions, there was some
nice detailing but at the time, critics found the look peculiar and a deviance
from the direction other manufacturers were travelling. The sides were unusually deep and rounded
(recalling, obviously, an airplane’s fuselage) with a beltline so high the
glasshouse (the cabin area defined by the windows) was relatively shallow,
something accentuated by the surrounding bulk. The corporation’s full-sized platform (internally
the “C-Body”), it was shared by the Plymouth, Dodge, Chrysler and Imperial
lines, the latter a surprise to some because since 1955 when it had been
established as a separate division, the Imperial had been built on a unique
platform. However, despite some
encouraging results in the 1950s, Imperial never achieved the volume which
would have justified another unique platform so the line was merged into
mainstream development.
1969 Imperial LeBaron four-door Hardtop advertising. The "messaging" in this advertisement remains obscure.
The
debut season saw good sales for the fuselage cars (though still more than 10%
down on the previous C-Body (1965-1968)) but demand dropped precipitously in
the next three years although sales were in buoyant in
1973 when many manufacturers set records; it was the last good year for the “old”
American economy and the swansong of the long post-war boom built on cheap,
limitless energy and the uniquely advantageous position the country enjoyed
after the war; something squandered by the mistakes of more than one
administration. It was certainly
unfortunate timing for Chrysler that the first oil crisis should hit just weeks
after they had replaced the fuselage cars with something mechanically similar
but with clever styling tricks (even the engineers admitted it was “nips &
tucks; smoke & mirrors”), something dimensionally similar appeared both
smaller and more modern. Underneath, as
the fuselage line had been, was essentially a good product, Chrysler’s basic
engineering always good and while the big machines would never behave like a
Lotus Elan, on the road they were competent and in most aspects as good as
or better than the competition.
The last of Harry S Truman's (1884–1972; US president 1945-1953) many cars was a 1972 Chrysler Newport, the entry-level model in Chrysler's Fuselage range (some Plymouth & Dodge models were cheaper still). Purchased some six months before his death, the licence plate (5745) was a special request, a reference to 7 May, 1945 (VE Day (Victory in Europe). Truman was in office on that day and the plate has since permanently been retired.
The
first oil shock hit demand for the 1974 cars and the timing was bad for all
points in the production and distribution chain. The 1974 Chryslers genuinely were improved and, noting the favourable reviews, dealers had
ordered large stocks to meet the expected demand but the ripples from the OAPEC (Organization
of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil embargo meant
sales of big cars collapsed and the Chryslers, with V8 engines between 318-440
cubic inches (5.2-7.2 litres) were as thirsty as any of their ilk; stocks of cars expected to be sold in days languished on dealer’s lots for
months. In response, Chrysler shut down
two manufacturing plants while trying to increase production or imports of
smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. Sales of
the big cars in 1974 were barely half those of the previous year and the breakdown
of those was a harbinger for the whole industry, the numbers disproportionately
slanted towards the higher-priced lines, the entry-level models attracting interest mostly from fleet operators and law enforcement.
The days of the low-cost big sedans which appealed to those like Harry Truman (a confessed Freemason) who liked the virtues
without the ostentation, were over and their survival for a few years was guaranteed only because their virtues suited fleet buyers like police forces, rental car operators and the military.
When buying a Newport, one got more metal for the money that any other of the big Chryslers offered but one President Truman never would have considered was the Newport Sportsgrain. For over a decade station wagons fitted with a combination of fibreglass spars emulating structural timbers and 3M's DI-NOC imitation wood panelling had been popular and, impressed by the solid sales numbers for these things which recalled the old “woody” station wagons (which, until the early 1950s had used real wood) Mercury decided those buying two-door hardtops and convertibles deserved the same choice. Thus for the 1968 season, “Yacht Deck Paneling” appeared in the catalogues as an option on the top-of-the-line Park Lane. Clearly not wishing to be thought deceptive, Mercury not only didn’t disguise the synthetic origins of the “simulated walnut-tone” appliqué, its advertising copy made a virtue of being faux, pointing out: “This paneling is tougher, longer-lasting than real wood… and every bit as beautiful” before concluding “wood-tone paneling has always been a good idea”.
1969 Chrysler Newport with “Sportsgrain” option. This was the era when the big cars came to be called “land yachts” so references to “yacht decks” and such were not inappropriate. Inefficient in so many ways, in their natural environment (“floating” effortlessly down the freeways, passengers and driver isolated within from the rest of the world), they excelled and there’s since been nothing quite like them.
That sales pitch must have convinced Chrysler “wood-tone paneling has always been a good idea” because it responded to what Mercury were doing by slipping onto the market the mid-season offering of the “Sportsgrain Newport”, available as a two-door hardtop or convertible, both with the simulated timber used on the corporation’s station wagons. A US$126 option, it was a deliberate attempt to evoke spirit of the high-priced Town and Country convertibles of the late 1940s but, because the T&C moniker had already been appropriated for the wagons, someone in marketing had to come with “sportsgrain” which now must seem mystifying to anyone unaware the first element of the portmanteau word was a nod to the convertibles of the early post-war years. Other than the large slab of vinyl, the “Sportsgrain” cars were standard Newports (then the cheapest of the Chrysler-branded models). While demand for appliqué-adorned station wagons remained strong, Chrysler in 1968 had no more success than Mercury in shifting hardtops & convertibles with the stuff glued on, only 965 of the former and 175 of the later being ordered which, nationwide, was not even one per dealer. Remarkably, the option returned for 1969 with the new “fuselage” body styling, possibly because the corporation, anticipating higher demand, had a warehouse full of 3M’s vinyl but, being simply glued on, maintaining the option would not have been an expensive exercise. Sales however must have been low, the survivors of the 1969 range rare and Chrysler have never disclosed the final season's production totals.
1978 Chrysler New Yorker advertising. Still obviously bulky, the 1974-1978 re-style toned down the fuselage look although the interiors in tufted leather or velor became increasingly baroque. Publications like Road & Track (R&T) where the writers disapproved of anything so big (they thought everyone should drive a Lancia) sneered at the extravagant fit-out, dismissing it as "gingerbread" but it was a luxurious and isolating environment. There were still many who liked that sort of thing, none of whom maintained subscriptions to R&T.
So the
writing was on the wall and even by 1977 when the oil crisis faded from memory
and it seemed buyers were ready again to buy big, Chrysler was left with its
now 1974 range while press and public fawned over General Motors’
(GM) newly slimmed-down, taut looking, full-size cars, the style and dimensions of which were so obviously the future. Tellingly, while radically reduced in weight and external measurements, on the inside, they were in most places as capacious as
both their predecessors and the now antique Chryslers which were still just an
update of the 1969 fuselage range. With
the coming of 1976, the corporation had accepted the inevitable and axed the
Imperial brand, Chrysler's top-of-the-range New Yorker tarted-up with
left-over Imperial trim to become the new flagship. The end was close and in 1978 it came, that
the last year of the big Chryslers released with such high expectations a
decade before and when the line was
retired, it took with it the once popular four-door hardtop body-style, other manufacturers having already retired their models. Shockingly inefficient though they are, the few surviving land yachts have a small but devoted following who appreciate what remains a unique driving experience (one as enjoyable as a passenger) and it's unlikely anything like them will ever be built again.
1970 Chrysler 300-H (300 Hurst).
The most unexpected fuselage Chrysler was something of a coda to the earlier 300 letter series (1955-1966). Although “surprise” is a common tactic in marketing, what was strange about the release of the Chrysler 300-Hurst (introduced in February 1970 at the Chicago Auto Show) was it being a surprise to the dealers parking it in their showrooms. Improbable as it sounds for a product released in the citadel of modern capitalism, the accepted orthodoxy is the management at Chrysler and Hurst both believed the other corporation would be handing the promotion so consequently, none was ever done. Given the market dynamics of the time, it’s debatable whether advertising would much have stimulated demand for such a machine and as things worked out, only some 500 were built, the model never replaced. In the era, there was little consistency in how the thing was discussed with publications variously using “300H”, “300 Hurst” and “Hurst 300” but the preferred use now seems to be “300-H” to distinguish it from the original 300H of 1962. Based on the Chrysler 300 built on the corporate C-Body (with the so called “fuselage” coachwork introduced for the 1969 season) conceptually, the 300-H was very much in the letter-series tradition and featured the combination of a more powerful version of the 440 cubic inch (7.2 litre) V8 (rated at 375 (gross) horsepower in a dual-exhaust configuration), the TorqueFlite (727) automatic transmission and the opulent leather interior from the Imperial line. Although often listed as a footnote, the 300-H isn't considered part of the letter-series lineage.
1970 Chrysler 300-H (300 Hurst). The leather trim and power-adjustable seats came from the Imperial line.
All were finished in Spinnaker White with Satin Tan color accents, and Medium Brown pin-striping, the H70–15 Goodyear Polyglas tyres mounted on 15 x 6-inch wheels in Saturn Iridescent paint. Although the high (numerically low; the final-drive ratio a conservative 3.23) gearing was indicative of a machine was built for high-speed cruising on the freeways rather than ¼ mile runs along a drag-strip, there were a few visual clues borrowed from muscle car genre, each 300-H equipped with a fibreglass hood (bonnet) which included the then-fashionable “power bulge” in the centre and a rear-mounted fresh air intake although unlike the muscle cars, this fed cold air not to the engine but the passenger compartment. The trunk (boot) lid (“rear-deck” in US terminology) was also a fibreglass piece which included an integrated spoiler (then referred to usually as an “airfoil”). The fibreglass mouldings were fabricated by two different companies and although the hoods were well-engineered, the rear decks lacked the internal stiffening required by a panel of such size and they proved over time prone to deformation, the warping most severe if the sitting for any length of time in high-temperature.
1970 Chrysler 300-H (300 Hurst).
By 1970, the 300-H must have seemed anachronistic because the market for high-performance variants of full-sized cars had evaporated as buyer preferences switched to the smaller intermediates and pony cars, by then available with the biggest, most powerful power-plants in Detroit’s inventory. General Motors (GM) had withdrawn from the segment and although Ford listed the option of a four-speed manual gearbox for big XLs with 429 cubic inch (7.0 litre), none were ever built while the 1969 Mercury Marauder X-100 (essentially a cosmetic package) was automatic-only and lasted only a single season. Chrysler’s Plymouth division still offered the triple-carburetor 440 (rated in 1970 at a healthy 390 HP) in the big Sport Fury but only with an automatic and sales were low. It’s worth remembering the original Chrysler 300 “letter cars” of 1955-1956 were essentially the same size as the intermediates of the mid 1960s which became so popular and were the platform which defined the “muscle car” during its brief and crazy vogue; the size was “right” in a US context and what the full-sized lines had grown to was not. As the fuselage Chryslers came to exemplify, the huge, full-sizers would prove ideal as “land yachts” a breed particular to the 1970s in which occupants, isolated from the outside as never before (and rarely since) “floated” down the freeways, consuming fossil fuels and expelling pollutants in volumes which now would astonish most and appal Greta Thunberg (b 2003).
Hurst built one 300-H convertible, used as a promotional vehicle for their famous shifters, often accompanied by Ms Linda Vaughn (b 1943) who stood on a platform mounted atop the rear desk, between giant models of shifters. Ms Vaughn was for more than two decades a welcome adornment to drag-strips, noted usually for noise and brutishness.
In 1970, Chrysler 300s tagged for conversion to 300-H specification came down the assembly line in the Jefferson Avenue plant in Detroit before being freighted to Hurst’s facility in Warminster, Pennsylvania to undergo a process which differed from the original plan: instead of deeper oil pans, upgraded ignition systems and the Hurst shifters which had made the company’s name, the cars received mostly cosmetic enhancements although the suspension was stiffened. About the only difference in configuration was some used a column-shift for the transmission and some a floor-shit with a console, the later combination used with bucket seats. Despite the 7.2 litre V8, the gearing and bulk conspired against muscle-car like acceleration although the ET (elapsed time) of 15.5 seconds for the standing quarter mile (400 m) was impressive, all things considered. However, with a MSRP (manufacturer's suggested retail price) of US$5,939 (without any options) it was the corporation’s most expensive offering (except for the Imperial line) and this, combined with the absence of promotion and the anyway declining interest in the segment meant there wasn’t a second batch beyond the original 500-odd (the total quoted variously between 485-501), many of which lingered on dealers’ lots. According to internal documents, the initial projections had anticipated sales of 2000.
The 300-H was the biggest of a number of cars to bear the Hurst name although internationally George Hurst’s (1927-1986; founder of his eponymous company), greatest legacy to the world was the “Jaws of Life”, a hydraulic cutter he first developed in 1961 after being shocked at how long it sometimes took to extract the driver from the crumpled wreck of a race car. The great advantage of the “Jaws of Life” was that it worked like a very powerful pair of scissors, avoiding the showers of sparks produced by mechanical saws, always a risk to use in areas where fuel is likely to have been spilled. The basic design came to be used in hydraulic rescue devices worldwide and quite how many lives have been saved by virtue of it use isn’t known but it would be a big number.
Ms Linda Vaughn on the move.
It’s said one 300-H was dealer-fitted with the fabled 426 cubic inch (7.0) Street Hemi V8 but like many such tales from the era, the veracity of that is uncertain and most find the tale improbable. Chrysler certainly never considered using either the Hemi or the triple-carburetor (3 x 2 bbl) version of the 440 because, given the market segment at which the thing was aimed, air-conditioning (AC) was thought likely to me an often chosen option and the factory never offered the option with either the Hemi or the most powerful 440, the systems of the era not suited to the high-revving units. It’s thus an orthodoxy in the collector that “no cars with the 426 Hemi or 440 6 bbl were fitted with AC by the factory” and while that’s true of Chrysler’s factories, it not the case for every factory because Jensen in the UK offered AC in their Interceptor SP (Six-Pack) which used the six-barrel 440 and the boutique Swiss manufacturer Monteverdi did include AC in the single mid-engined Hai fitted with a Hemi.
