BioDesign?The words “biodesign” and “biodynamics” may not mean a lot to you unless you studied industrial design somewhere along the way, or you somehow managed to live through the sixties, so let me fill you in on the topic by way of a little story.Once upon a time there was a brilliant industrial designer who hailed from Berlin but called the world his home. His name was Luigi Colani.He studied sculpture in Berlin and aerodynamics in Paris, he went to work for the Douglas Aircraft Company in California in the early 50s, then started designing cars for Alfa Romeo and Fiat, then BMW and Ferrari. He designed Formula One racing cars and the Colani motorcycle, which set speed records in Italy. Cameras for Canon followed, then designs for Zeiss Optics, computers for Vobis, headphones for Sony…The list is almost as endless as the dizzying array of products designed. Odds are you have a Colani designed product lurking in your house somewhere, be it cutlery or porcelain or a fountain

pen. And all these products h a v e o n e u n i f y i n g characteristic.Consider this: “Whenever we talk about biodesign we should simply bear in mind just how amazingly superior a spider’s web is to any load-bearing structure man has made – and then derive from this insight that we should look to the superiority of nature for the solutions. If we want to tackle a new task in the studio, then it’s best to go outside first and look at what millenia-old answers there may already be to the

problem.” Luigi Colani welcomes you to his website (http://www.colani.ch/) with this quote, and I think it worthwhile to consider this while you take in Jason Chandler’s brilliant interpretation of the classic Colani Fanliner, now available for X-Plane.First the file. It’s freeware! The avionics are minimal, but very well done. No flight documentation provided, and none required. The file opens hot, you drop the flaps and go. The Fanliner wasn’t a rocket, and neither is Mr Chandler’s version, but what you do get is a

20 JULY 2010 | x p 1 0 r e v i e w s a i r c r a f t r e v i e w Jason Chandler | c 7 4 . n e t

B e l l B o t t o m B l u e sThe Colani Fanliner first appeared in 1976–when disco was all the rage and bell bottoms were still high fashion–and the little plane was produced in small numbers in Germany before it disappeared from view. A few examples have surfaced in design museums, yet curiously the design still awes with it’s organic simplicity and aura of futuristic utilitarianism. Then Jason Chandler came along and took a look… a mini-review by chipsim7

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superb wide-screen view of everything you’re flying over. So what, you say. So what indeed.Don’t have any o r t h o - s c e n e r y i n s t a l l e d y e t ? Well, you will, a n d p r o b a b l y sooner than you think, and flying low and s low over your favorite photo-rea l i s t ic scener y might well become a favorite pastime for X-Pilots in the ver y near future, especially when armed with a file like Jason Chandler’s Fanliner.The view ahead is unobstructed and expansive, the aircraft docile, easy to fly. With a wide-screen monitor in a darkened room the feeling is a little bit like an IMAX movie–albeit a scaled down version!There is a very basic 3D view enabled, as shown above, but no passenger cabin or expanded cockpit view. All secondary flight controls/avionics are handled through mapped joystick commands or

keyboard equivalents, and the center-post has been e l i m i n a t e d t o p r e s e r v e t h e expansive view.F l y i n g t h e F a n L i n e r i s simplicity itself.T h r o t t l e a n d mixture controls n e e d t o b e balanced (gauge, top left), Vref is a stately 50kts or s o , a n d t h e a i r c r a f t t r ims easily for level flight. Rate of climb is similarly sedate, and the a i r c r a f t s t a l l s e a s i l y a n d

progressively, a sure sign that the designer massaged the flight model to reflect reality as well as he could.This is a fun-to-fly file, and that’s all there is to it. It’s one of those ‘grab a cup of coffee and settle in for a quick flight after dinner’ files. It doesn’t demand a lot of mucking about with avionics, just a ready hand and a willingness to go futz around in the virtual sky for a half hour or so. But once you get a couple of photorealistic sceneries onboard, this may well become one of your favorites!

One of the remaining Colani Fanliners, now located in a museum.

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The Colani Fanliner is a freeware file available from Jason Chandler at his C74 site, but there is a catch. While it is free, it is only available to his paying customers. Call it a fringe-benefit. Don’t have one of their files yet? Well, this is a good time to change that. Just point your browser to: http://www.c74.net/xplane/_xpo_coop.html and take a look around. If you haven’t seen their current special offer of fourteen

different Piper models for fourteen dollars (http://www.c74.net/xplane/_piper.html) this is the time to do it! Once you’re registered there you’ll find lot’s of other freeware files available, and new ones come up all the time, but the Colani FanLiner IS there NOW! Free!!!So, dust off those bell bottoms and go for a dance!Thank You, Jason, and thanks for joining us for a quick look at this great file. We’ll see you soon!

(MAX : 5 per element)1. Frame Rate Performance: 2. Flight Model: 3. Exterior Model: 4. Cockpit & Panel: 5. Ease of use: 6. Documentation: n/a 7. X-Factor (or, does it make you feel like a

grinning fool every time time you !y it?):

Overall Score: