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Queen Elizabeth 2

Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) is a retired British passenger ship converted into a floating hotel. Originally built for the Cunard Line, the ship was operated by Cunard as both a transatlantic liner and a cruise ship from 1969 to 2008. She was then laid up until converted and since 18 April 2018 has been operating as a floating hotel in Dubai.

Queen Elizabeth 2 was designed for the transatlantic service from her home port of Southampton, UK, to New York, United States. She served as the flagship of the line from 1969 until succeeded by Queen Mary 2 in 2004. Queen Elizabeth 2 was designed in Cunard's offices in Liverpool and Southampton and built in Clydebank, Scotland. She was considered the last of the transatlantic ocean liners until "Project Genesis" was announced by Cunard Line in 1995 after the business purchase of Cunard by Micky Arison; chairman of Carnival and Carnival UK. Project Genesis was intended to create new life in the ocean liner saga, and in 1998, Cunard revealed the name: RMS Queen Mary 2.

Queen Elizabeth 2 was refitted with a modern diesel powerplant in 1986–87. She undertook regular world cruises during almost 40 years of service, and later operated predominantly as a cruise ship, sailing out of Southampton, England. Queen Elizabeth 2 had no running mate and never ran a year-round weekly transatlantic express service to New York. She did, however, continue the Cunard tradition of regular scheduled transatlantic crossings every year of her service life.

Queen Elizabeth 2 retired from active Cunard service on 27 November 2008. She had been acquired by the private equity arm of Dubai World, which planned to begin conversion of the vessel to a 500-room floating hotel moored at the Palm Jumeirah, Dubai. The 2008 financial crisis intervened, however, and the ship was laid up at Dubai Drydocks and later Mina Rashid. Subsequent conversion plans were announced in 2012 and then again by the Oceanic Group in 2013, but both plans stalled. In November 2015, Cruise Arabia & Africa quoted DP World chairman Ahmed Sultan Bin Sulayem as saying that QE2 would not be scrapped and a Dubai-based construction company announced in March 2017 that it had been contracted to refurbish the ship. The restored QE2 opened to visitors on 18 April 2018, with a soft opening.

Development

By 1957, transatlantic sea travel was becoming displaced by air transit due to its speed and low relative cost, with passenger numbers split 50:50 between them. With jets capable of spanning the ocean non-stop replacing prop planes, and the debut of the Boeing 707 and the Douglas DC8 in 1958, the trend was rapidly increasing. Simultaneously, the aging RMS Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were becoming increasingly expensive to operate, and both internally and externally were relics of the pre-war era.

Despite falling passenger revenues, Cunard did not want to give up its traditional role as a provider of a North Atlantic passenger service and Royal Mail carrier, and so decided to replace the obsolete Queens with a new generation liner.

Designated Q3 during work-up, it was projected to measure 75,000 gross register tons, have berths for 2,270 passengers, and cost about £30 million.

Work had proceeded as far as the preparation of submissions from six shipyards and applying for government financial assistance with the construction when misgivings among some executives and directors, coupled with a shareholder revolt, led to the benefits of the project being reappraised and ultimately cancelled on 19 October 1961.

Cunard decided to continue with a replacement plan but with an altered operating regime and more flexible design. Realising the decline of transatlantic trade, it was visualised that the new Queen would be dual-purpose three-class ship offering First, Cabin and Tourist passage for eight months a year on the transatlantic route, then as a cruise ship in warmer climates and during the winter months.

Compared with the older Queens, which had two engine rooms and four propellers, the newly designated Q4 would be much smaller, with one boiler room, one engine room, and two propellers, which combined with automation would allow a smaller engineering complement. Producing 110,000 shp, the new ship was to have the same 28.5 kn service speed as her predecessors, while consuming half the fuel. A reduction to 520 tons per 24 hours was estimated to save Cunnard £1 million annually. Able to transit both the Panama and Suez canals, her 7 ft shallower draught of 32 ft would allow her to enter more and smaller ports than the old ships, particularly in tropical waters.

Design

The interior and superstructure for the QE2 was designed by James Gardner. The result was described by The Council of Industrial Design as that of a "very big yacht" and with a "look [that was] sleek, modern and purposeful".

Characteristics
As built, QE2 had a gross tonnage of, was 963 ft long, and had a top speed of 32.5 knots with steam turbines; this was increased to 34 kn when the vessel was re-engined with the diesel-electric powerplant. At the time of retirement, the ship had a gross tonnage of 70,327.

Hull
The hull was of welded steel plates, which avoided the weight penalty of over ten million rivets and overlappeding of historic ship construction, and was fitted with a modern bulbous bow.

Superstructure
Like both SS Normandie and SS France (1961), QE2 had a flared stem and clean forecastle.

What was controversial at the time was that Cunard decided not to paint the funnel with the line's distinctive colour and pattern, something that had been done on all its merchant vessels since the first Cunarder, RMS Britannia, sailed in 1840. Instead, the funnel was painted white and black, with the Cunard orange-red appearing only on the inside of the wind scoop. This practice ended in 1983 when QE2 returned from service in the Falklands War, and the funnel was repainted in traditional Cunard orange and black, with black horizontal bands, known as "hands".

The original narrow funnel was rebuilt larger during her 1986 refurbishment in Bremerhaven, using steel panels from the original, when the ship was converted from steam to diesel power.

Large quantities of weight-saving aluminium were used in the framing and cladding of QE2's superstructure in place of steel. Reducing the draft of the ship lowered fuel consumption, but invited the electrochemical corrosion where the dissimilar metals are joined together, prevented by using a jointing compound. The low melting point of aluminium caused concern when QE2 was serving as a troopship during the Falklands War, with some fearing that if the ship were struck by a missile her upper decks would collapse quickly due to fire.

In 1972, the first penthouse suites were added in an aluminium structure on Signal Deck and Sports Deck (now "Sun Deck"), behind the ship's bridge, and in 1977 this structure was expanded to include more suites with balconies, making QE2 one of the first ships to offer private terraces to passengers since Normandie in the 1930s. Her balcony accommodation was expanded for the final time when her funnel was widened during the 1986/87 overhaul.

QE2's final structural changes included the reworking of the aft decks during the 1994 refit, following the removal of the magrodome, and the addition of an undercover area on Sun Deck during the 2005 refit outfitted as the Funnel Bar.

Interiors
Queen Elizabeth 2's interior configuration was originally designed for segregated two-class Atlantic crossings. It was laid out in a horizontal fashion, similar to France, where the spaces dedicated to the two classes were spread on specific decks, in contrast to the deck-spanning vertical class divisions of older liners. Where QE2 differed from France in having only two classes of service, with the upper deck dedicated to tourist class and the quarter deck beneath it to first-class. Each had its own main lounge.

Another modern variation was providing tourist class with a grand two-story main ballroom, called the Double Room (later the Grand Lounge), created by opening a well in the deck between what were to have been the second and third class lounges in the ship's original three class design. This too was unconventional in that it designated a grander space for tourist class passengers than first class, who gathered in the standard height Queen's Room. The First-class was given the theatre balcony on Boat Deck, and tourist class the orchestra level on Upper Deck.

Over the span of her thirty-nine-year seagoing career, QE2 received a number of interior refits and alterations.

The year QE2 entered service, 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, the Concorde prototype was unveiled, and the Boeing 747 first took flight. In keeping with those technology influenced times, Cunard abandoned the Art Deco interiors of the previous Queens in favor of everyday modern materials like laminates, aluminium and Perspex. The public rooms featured glass, stainless steel, dark carpeting and sea green leather. Furniture was modular, and abstract art was used throughout public rooms and cabins.

Dennis Lennon was responsible for co-ordinating the interior design, assisted by Jon Bannenberg and Gaby Schreiber; his original designs only remained intact for three years.

The Midships Lobby on Two Deck, where first-class passengers boarded for transatlantic journeys and all passengers boarded for cruises, was a circular room with a sunken seating area in the centre with green leather-clad banquettes surrounded by a chrome railing. In the centre was a flared, white, trumpet-shaped, lighted column.

The Theatre Bar on Upper Deck featured red chairs, red drapes, a red egg crate fibreglass screen, and even a red baby grand piano. Some more traditional materials like wood veneer were used as highlights throughout the ship, especially in passenger corridors and staterooms. There was also an Observation Bar on Quarter Deck, a successor to its namesake, located in a similar location, on both previous Queens, which offered views through large windows over the ship's bow. The QE2's 1972 refit plated over the windows and turned the room into galley space.

Almost all of the remaining original decor was replaced in the 1994 refit, with Cunard opting to use the line's traditional ocean liners as inspiration. The green velvet and leather Midships Bar became the Art Deco inspired Chart Room, receiving an original, custom-designed piano from Queen Mary. The (by then) blue dominated Theatre Bar was transformed into the traditional Edwardian-themed Golden Lion Pub.

Some original elements were retained, including the flared columns in the Queen's Room and Mid-Ships Lobby. The Queen's Room's indirect ceiling lighting was replaced with uplighters which reversed the original light airy effect by illuminating the lowered ceiling and leaving shadows in the ceiling's slot.

By the time of QE2's retirement, the ship's synagogue was the only room that had remained unaltered since 1969. However it was reported that during QE2's 22 October five-night voyage, the synagogue was dismantled and removed from the ship before her final sailing to Dubai.

Artwork and artefacts
The designers included numerous pieces of artwork within the public rooms of the ship, as well as maritime artefacts drawn from Cunard's long history of operating merchant vessels.

Althea Wynne's sculpture of the White Horses of the Atlantic Ocean was installed in the Mauretania Restaurant. Two bronze busts were installed—one of Sir Samuel Cunard outside the Yacht Club, and one of Queen Elizabeth II in the Queen's Room. Four life-size statues of human forms—created by sculptor Janine Janet in marine materials like shell and coral, representing the four elements—were installed in the Princess Grill. A frieze designed by Brody Nevenshwander, depicting the words of T. S. Eliot, Sir Francis Drake, and John Masefield, was in the Chart Room. The Midships Lobby housed a solid silver model of Queen Elizabeth 2 made by Asprey of Bond Street in 1975, which was lost until a photograph found in 1997 led to the discovery of the model itself. It was placed on Queen Elizabeth 2 in 1999.

Three custom-designed tapestries were commissioned from Helena Hernmarck for the ship's launch, depicting the Queen as well as the launch of the ship. These tapestries were originally hung in the Quarter Deck "D" Stairway, outside the Columbia Restaurant. They were originally made with golden threads, but much of this was lost when they were incorrectly cleaned during the 1987 refit. They were subsequently hung in the "E" stairway and later damaged in 2005.

There are numerous photographs, oils, and pastels of members of the Royal Family throughout the vessel.

The ship also housed items from previous Cunard ships, including both a brass relief plaque with a fish motif from the first RMS Mauretania (1906) and an Art-Deco bas-relief titled Winged Horse and Clouds by Norman Foster from RMS Queen Elizabeth. There were also a vast array of Cunard postcards, porcelain, flatware, boxes, linen, and Lines Bros Tri-ang Minic model ships. One of the key pieces was a replica of the figurehead from Cunard's first ship RMS Britannia, carved from Quebec yellow pine by Cornish sculptor Charles Moore and presented to the ship by Lloyd's of London.

On the Upper Deck sits the silver Boston Commemorative Cup, presented to Britannia by the City of Boston in 1840. This cup was lost for decades until it was found in a pawn shop in Halifax, Nova Scotia. On "2" Deck was a bronze entitled Spirit of the Atlantic that was designed by Barney Seale for the second RMS Mauretania (1938). A large wooden plaque was presented to Queen Elizabeth 2 by First Sea Lord Sir John Fieldhouse to commemorate the ship's service as a Hired Military Transport (HMT) in the Falklands War.

There was also an extensive collection of large-scale models of Cunard ships located throughout Queen Elizabeth 2.

Over the years the ship's collection was added to. Among those items was a set of antique Japanese armour presented to Queen Elizabeth 2 by the Governor of Kagoshima, Japan, during her 1979 world cruise, as was a Wedgwood vase presented to the ship by Lord Wedgwood.

Throughout the public areas were also silver plaques commemorating the visits of every member of the Royal Family, as well as other dignitaries such as South African president Nelson Mandela.

Istithmar bought most of these items from Cunard when it purchased QE2.

Crew accommodation
The majority of the crew were accommodated in two- or four-berth cabins, with showers and toilets at the end of each alleyway. These were located forward and aft on decks three to six. At the time she entered service, the crew areas were a significant improvement over those aboard RMS Queen Mary and RMS Queen Elizabeth; however the ship's age and the lack of renovation of the crew area during her 40 years of service, in contrast to passenger areas, which were updated periodically, meant that this accommodation was considered basic by the end of her career. Officers were accommodated in single cabins with private in-suite bathrooms located on Sun Deck.

There were six crew bars, the main four were split into the Senior Rates Recreation Rooms on Deck 2 and the Junior Rates on Deck 3, with Deck and Engine Departments on the port side and Hotel on the starboard side of the ship. The Female crew recreation room was on Deck 1 next to their dedicated mess room. Over time the Deck & Engine Ratings Room became The Petty Officers Club and then the Fo'c'sle Club when the British Deck and Engine crew were changed to Filipino crew. The Hotel Senior Rates room became a crew gym. The Junior Rates Rooms on Deck 3 were the main crew bars and were called The Pig & Whistle. ("The 2 deck Pig" and three deck pig, for short and a tradition aboard Cunard ships) and Castaways on the starboard side. After the expansion of female crew following the conversion to diesel power, the female-only recreation and mess room became a crew library and later the crew services office. The final bar on Deck 6 aft was small and in a former crew launderette so it was called the Dhobi Arms, a hang out for the Liverpool crew but was closed in the late '80s. A bar, dedicated for the officers, is located at the forward end of Boat Deck. Named The Officers Wardroom, this area enjoyed forward-facing views and was often opened to passengers for cocktail parties hosted by the senior officers. The crew mess was situated at the forward end of One Deck, adjacent to the crew services office.

Machinery

Queen Elizabeth 2 was originally fitted out with a steam turbine propulsion system using three Foster Wheeler E.S.D II boilers, which provided steam for the two Brown-Parsons turbines. The turbines were rated with a maximum power output figure of 110000 shp (normally operating at 94000 hp) and coupled via double-reduction gearing to two six-bladed fixed-pitch propellers.

The steam turbines were plagued with problems from the time the ship first entered service and, despite being technically advanced and fuel-efficient in 1968, her consumption of 600 tons of fuel oil every twenty-four hours was more than expected for such a ship by the 1980s. After seventeen years of service, the availability of spare parts was becoming difficult due to the outdated design of the boilers and turbines and the constant use of the machinery which was mainly due to Cundard's cost-saving deletion of the originally planned 4th boiler while the ship was still on the drawing board.

The shipping company decided that the options were to either do nothing for the remainder of the ship's life, re-configure the existing engines, or completely re-engine the vessel with a modern, more efficient and more reliable diesel-electric powerplant. Ultimately it was decided to replace the engines, as it was calculated that the savings in fuel costs and maintenance would pay for themselves over four years while giving the vessel a minimum of another twenty years of service, whereas the other options would only provide short-term relief. Her steam turbines had taken her to a record-breaking total of 2,622,858 miles in 18 years.

During the ship's 1986 to 1987 refit, the steam turbines were removed and replaced with nine German MAN 9L58/64 nine-cylinder, medium-speed diesel engines, each weighing approximately 120 tons. Using a diesel-electric configuration, each engine drives a generator, each developing 10.5 MW of electrical power at 10,000 volts. This electrical plant, in addition to powering the ship's auxiliary and hotel services through transformers, drives the two main propulsion motors, one on each propeller shaft. These motors produce 44 MW each and are of synchronised salient-pole construction, nine metres in diameter and weighing more than 400 tons each.

The ship's service speed of 28.5 kn was now maintained using only seven of the diesel-electric sets. The maximum power output with the new engine configuration running increased to 130,000 hp, which was greater than the previous system's 110,000 hp. Using the same IBF-380 (Bunker C) fuel, the new configuration yielded a 35% fuel saving over the previous system. During the re-engining process, her funnel was modified into a wider one to accommodate the exhaust pipes for the nine MAN diesel engines.

During the refit, the original fixed-pitch propellers were replaced with variable-pitch propellers. The old steam propulsion system required astern turbines to move the ship backward or stop her moving forward. The pitch of the new variable pitch blades could simply be reversed, causing a reversal of propeller thrust while maintaining the same direction of propeller rotation, allowing the ship shorter stopping times and improved handling characteristics.

The new propellers were originally fitted with "Grim Wheels", named after their inventor, Dr. Ing Otto Grim. These were free-spinning propeller blades fitted behind the main propellers, with long vanes protruding from the centre hub. The Grim Wheels were designed to recover lost propeller thrust and reduce fuel consumption by 2.5 to 3%. After the trial of these wheels, when the ship was drydocked, the majority of the vanes on each wheel were discovered to have broken off. The wheels were removed and the project was abandoned.

Other machinery includes nine heat recovery boilers, coupled with two oil-fired boilers to produce steam for heating fuel, domestic water, swimming pools, laundry equipment, and galleys. Four flash evaporators and a reverse-osmosis unit desalinate seawater to produce 1000 tons of freshwater daily. There is also a sanitation system and sewage disposal plant, air conditioning plant, and an electro-hydraulic steering system.

Construction
On 30 December 1964, Cunard placed an order for construction of the new ship with John Brown and Company, who would build it at their shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland. The agreed price was £25,427,000 with provision for escalation of labour and materials increases, with an agreed delivery date of May 1968. To assist with its construction the British government provided financial assistance to Cunard in the form of a £17.6 million loan at 4.5% interest.

The keel was laid down on 5 July 1965, as hull number 736 on the same slipway where previous Cunard liners such as RMS Lusitania, RMS Aquitania, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth had been constructed.

The ship was launched and named on 20 September 1967 by Queen Elizabeth II, using the same pair of gold scissors her mother and grandmother used to launch Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary, respectively. After the bottle of champagne was smashed the QE2 stayed put on the slipway for 90 seconds before being let free. In a break with tradition, Cunard declined to give the ship royal mail status. Consequently, throughout her career, QE2 was either an SS, or MV or MS.

Name
Authorities disagree over whether the ship's namesake is the monarch Elizabeth II or the liner Queen Elizabeth.

Form of name
The name of the liner as it appears on the bow and stern is Queen Elizabeth 2, with upper- and lower-case lettering and an Arabic numeral 2 as opposed to the Roman numeral II, distinguishing her from the monarch, Elizabeth II; it is commonly pronounced in speech as Queen Elizabeth Two. Soon after launching, the name was shortened in common use as QE2.

Background
Queen Mary, in 1934, and Queen Elizabeth, in 1938, were both named by and for contemporary spouses of reigning monarchs: Mary of Teck and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, respectively. These two previous Cunarders both had capitalised bow names, as QUEEN MARY and QUEEN ELIZABETH.

Cunard practice at the time of naming QE2 was to re-use the existing name of its former ships, for example, launching RMS Mauretania (1938) in 1938 after the previous RMS Mauretania (1906) was scrapped in 1935.

The original Queen Elizabeth was still in service with Cunard when QE2 was launched in 1967, although she was retired and sold before QE2 entered revenue service with Cunard in 1969.

The addition of a "2" in this manner was unknown at the time, but it was not unknown for Roman numerals to denote ships in service with the same name. Two non-Cunard ships were named Queen Mary II: a Clyde steamer, and Mauretania II, a Southampton steamer of Red Funnel, since the Cunard ships already had the names without Roman numerals.

Launch
As was Cunard practice at the time, the name of the liner was not to be publicly revealed until the launch. Dignitaries were invited to the "Launch of Cunard Liner No. 736", as no name had yet been painted on the bow.

The Queen launched the ship with the words "I name this ship Queen Elizabeth the Second," the normal short form of address of the monarch, Elizabeth II herself. The following day, the New York Times and The Times of London printed the name as Queen Elizabeth II, the short form of written style of the monarch. However, when the liner left the shipyard in 1968 she bore the name Queen Elizabeth 2 on her bow, and has continued to do so ever since.

1969 authorised history
In an authorised history of Queen Elizabeth 2 published in 1969, various explanations of events occur.

These state that, as at the launch ceremony, an envelope and card were also held in New York in case of transmission failure, and when opened the card was found to read the name Queen Elizabeth, and that the decision to add "The Second" to the name was an alteration by the Queen. The book quotes the Cunard chairman Sir Basil Smallpeice as saying "The Queen Mary [named] after her Grandmother, the Queen Elizabeth after her mother, and now this magnificent ship after herself."

Following the unexpected addition of the Second by the Queen, the book attributes the use of upper and lower case lettering and a numeric 2 – rather than a Roman II – to the decision by Cunard to use a more modern typeface to suit the style of the 1960s. The book also surmises that the naming of the liner after the reigning monarch, in the form Queen Elizabeth II, was potentially offensive to some Scots, as the title of Queen Elizabeth II (of the United Kingdom) relates to the lineage of the throne of England and Ireland (the Tudor monarch Elizabeth I having reigned only in England and Ireland).

Ron Warwick, former captain
In a later account by Ronald Warwick, who was the son of William "Bil" Warwick and the first master of QE2, Warwick junior (himself later in his Cunard career a master of the QE2 and latterly the first captain of QM2) supports the account that the Queen initiated the surprise move of naming the liner after herself rather than simply Queen Elizabeth as had originally been planned (the name having been made vacant by the retirement of the current liner before the new one was commissioned). The name had been given to the Queen in a sealed envelope which she didn't open. The book, referencing his autobiography, states that the Cunard chairman Sir Basil Smallpeice [sic] was delighted with this development, it being in keeping with the previous Queen liners, and the 2 was added by Cunard for differentiation of the ship while still denoting it was named after the Queen.

Cunard website
From at least 2002 the official Cunard website stated that "The new ship is not named after the Queen but is simply the second ship to bear the name – hence the use of the Arabic 2 in her name, rather than the Roman II used by the Queen", however, in late 2008 this information had been removed due to the ship's retirement.

Other accounts
Other later accounts repeat the position that Cunard originally intended to name the ship Queen Elizabeth and the addition of a 2 by the Queen was a surprise to Cunard, in 1990 and 2008, although two books by William H. Miller state that Queen Elizabeth 2 was the name agreed on before the launch between Cunard officials and the Queen.

Accounts that repeat the position that QE2 was not named after the reigning monarch have been published in 1991, 1999, 2004, 2005, and 2008. In 2008, The Telegraph goes further to state the ship is named not only as the second ship named Queen Elizabeth, but is specifically named after the wife of King George VI. In contradiction however, some modern accounts continue to publish that the QE2 was named after the reigning monarch, in 2001 and 2008. There is a gilded bust that stands in the ship's queen's room depicting Queen Elizabeth II, not her mother.

Delivery
As construction continued on the new ship, Cunard found itself in increasing financial difficulties as increased competition from airlines resulted in the company's passenger ships losing money. With profits from its cargo ships eventually unable to offset the losses, Cunard was forced to sell Mauretania, Sylvania, Carinthia, Caronia, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth between 1965 and 1968. Income also fell due to a seven-week-long seamens' strike in 1966. Then John Brown advised that the delivery would be delayed by six months, which meant the ship would miss the 1968 peak summer transatlantic season. Following market research, Cunard decided to take advantage of the delay to change the original three-class configuration of the ship to a more flexible two-class arrangement of First and Tourist.

On 20 September 1967 with the launch date approaching, Cunard (having lost £7.5 million the previous year) approached the government with a request for an additional £3 million loan to complete the ship. Eventually the government agreed to increase the original £17.6 million loan up to £24 million.

On 19 November 1968, she left John Brown's fitting-out berth. Several industrial disputes with the Clydebank workers, with their resultant delays and quality issues, forced Cunard to transfer the ship to Southampton, where Vosper Thorneycroft completed the installation and commissioning work, prior to the sea trials.

Sea trials began on 26 November 1968 in the Irish Sea, proceeding to speed trials off the Isle of Arran.

Cunard initially refused to accept the ship, as the sea trials identified that the ship suffered from a resonant vibration which was traced to a design flaw in the blades of the steam turbines. This delayed her being handed over to her new owners until 18 April 1969. She then departed on a "shakedown cruise" to Las Palmas on 22 April 1969.

Early career
Queen Elizabeth 2's maiden voyage, from Southampton to New York, commenced on 2 May 1969, taking 4 days, 16 hours, and 35 minutes.

In 1971, she participated in the rescue of some 500 passengers from the burning French Line ship SS Antilles. Later that year on 5 March QE2 was disabled for four hours when jellyfish were sucked into and blocked her seawater intakes.

On 17 May 1972, while travelling from New York to Southampton, she was the subject of a bomb threat. She was searched by her crew, and a combined Special Air Service and Special Boat Service team which parachuted into the sea to conduct a search of the ship. No bomb was found, but the hoaxer was arrested by the FBI.

The following year QE2 undertook two chartered cruises through the Mediterranean to Israel in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the state's founding. The ship's Columbia Restaurant was koshered for Passover, and Jewish passengers were able to celebrate Passover on the ship. According to the book "The Angel" by Uri Bar-Joseph, Muammar Gaddafi ordered a submarine to torpedo her during one of the chartered cruises in retaliation for Israel's downing of Libyan Flight 114, but Anwar Sadat intervened secretly to foil the attack.

She continued the Cunard tradition of regular scheduled transatlantic crossings every year of her service life, crossing on an opposite and symbiotic summer schedule with the CGT's famous SS France (1960) between 1961 and 1974. Upon the withdrawal of competing SS France from service in 1974, QE2 became the largest operational passenger ship in the world for a few years, until the France was returned to service as SS Norway in 1980.

On 23 July 1976 while the ship was 80 miles off the Scilly Isles on a transatlantic voyage, a flexible coupling drive connecting the starboard main engine high-pressure rotor and the reduction gearbox ruptured. This allowed lubricating oil under pressure to enter into the main engine room where it ignited, creating a severe fire. It took 20 minutes to bring the fire under control. Reduced to two boilers, QE2 limped back to Southampton. Damage from the fire resulted in a replacement boiler having to be fitted by dry-docking the ship and cutting an access hole in her side.

By 1978 she was breaking even with an occupancy of 65%, generating revenues of greater than £30 million per year against which had to be deducted an annual fuel cost of £5 million and a monthly crew cost of £225,000. With it costing £80,000 a day for her to sit idle in port, her owners made every attempt to keep her at sea and full of passengers. As a result, as much maintenance as possible was undertaken while at sea. However, she needed all three of her boilers to be in service if she was to maintain her transatlantic schedule. With limited ability to maintain her boilers, reliability was becoming a serious issue.

Between the late 1970s and early 1980s, the ship was testing a new ablative anti-fouling type paint for the Admiralty which was only available in blue. When they finally made the paint available in different colours they returned QE2 anti-fouling paint to the traditional red colour.

Falklands War
On 3 May 1982, she was requisitioned by the British government for service as a troop carrier in the Falklands War.

In preparation for war service, Vosper Thornycroft commenced in Southampton on 5 May 1982 the installation of two helicopter pads, the transformation of public lounges into dormitories, the installation of fuel pipes that ran through the ship down to the engine room to allow for refuelling at sea, and the covering of carpets with 2,000 sheets of hardboard. A quarter of the ship's length was reinforced with steel plating, and an anti-magnetic coil was fitted to combat naval mines. Over 650 Cunard crew members volunteered for the voyage, to look after the 3,000 members of the Fifth Infantry Brigade, which the ship transported to South Georgia.

On 12 May 1982, with only one of her three boilers in operation, the ship departed Southampton for the South Atlantic, carrying 3,000 troops and 650 volunteer crew. The remaining boilers were brought back into service as she steamed south.

During the voyage, the ship was blacked out and the radar switched off to avoid detection, steaming on without modern aids.

QE2 returned to the UK on 11 June 1982, where she was greeted in Southampton Water by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother on board HMY Britannia. Peter Jackson, the captain of the ocean liner, responded to the Queen Mother's welcome: "Please convey to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth our thanks for her kind message. Cunard's Queen Elizabeth 2 is proud to have been of service to Her Majesty's Forces." The ship underwent conversion back to passenger service, with her funnel being painted in the traditional Cunard orange with black stripes, which are known as "hands," for the first time, during the refit the hull's exterior was repainted an unconventional light pebble grey. She returned to service on 7 August 1982.

The new colour scheme proved unpopular with passengers, as well as difficult to maintain and so the hull reverted to traditional colours in 1983. Later that year, QE2 was fitted with a magrodome over her quarterdeck pool.

Diesel era and Project Lifestyle

QE2 once again experienced mechanical problems following her annual overhaul in November 1983. Boiler problems caused Cunard to cancel a cruise, and, in October 1984, an electrical fire caused a complete loss of power. The ship was delayed for several days before power could be restored. Instead of replacing the QE2 with a newer vessel, Cunard decided that it was more prudent to simply make improvements to her. Therefore, from 27 October 1986 to 25 April 1987, QE2 underwent one of her most significant refurbishments when she was converted by Lloyd Werft at their shipyard in Bremerhaven, Germany from steam power to diesel. Nine MAN B&W diesel-electric engines, new propellers and a heat recovery system (to use heat expelled by the engines) were fitted, which halved the fuel consumption. With this new propulsion system, QE2 was expected to serve another 20 years with Cunard. The passenger accommodation was also modernised. The refurbishment cost over £100 million.

On 7 August 1992, the underside of the hull was extensively damaged when she ran aground south of Cuttyhunk Island near Martha's Vineyard, while returning from a five-day cruise to Halifax, Nova Scotia along the east coast of the United States and Canada. A combination of her speed, an uncharted shoal and underestimating the increase in the ship's draft due to the effect of squat led to the ship's hull scraping rocks on the ocean floor. The accident resulted in the passengers disembarking earlier than scheduled at nearby Newport, Rhode Island and the ship being taken out of service while temporary repairs were made in drydock at Boston. Several days later, divers found the red paint from the keel on previously uncharted rocks where the ship struck the bottom.

By the mid-1990s, it was decided that QE2 was due for a new look and in 1994 the ship was given a multimillion-pound refurbishment in Hamburg code-named Project Lifestyle.

On 11 September 1995, QE2 encountered a rogue wave, estimated at 90 ft, caused by Hurricane Luis in the North Atlantic Ocean about 200 mi south of eastern Newfoundland. One year later, during her twentieth world cruise, she completed her four millionth mile. The ship had sailed the equivalent of 185 times around the planet.

QE2 celebrated the 30th anniversary of her maiden voyage in Southampton in 1999. In three decades she had 1,159 voyages, sailed 4648050 nmi and carried over two million passengers.

Later years
Following the 1998 acquisition of the Cunard Line by Carnival Corporation, in 1999 QE2 was given a US$30 million refurbishment which included refreshing various public rooms, and a new colour palette in the passenger cabins. The Royal Promenade, which formerly housed upscale shops such as Burberry, H. Stern and Aquascutum, were replaced by boutiques typical of cruise ships, selling perfumes, watches and logo items. During this refit, the hull was stripped to bare metal, and the ship repainted in the traditional Cunard colours of matte black (Federal Grey) with a white superstructure.

On 29 August 2002, Queen Elizabeth 2 became the first merchant ship to sail more than 5 million nautical miles at sea.

In 2004, the vessel stopped plying the traditional transatlantic route and began full-time cruising, the transatlantic route having been assigned to Cunard's new flagship, RMS Queen Mary 2. However, Queen Elizabeth 2 still undertook an annual world cruise and regular trips around the Mediterranean. By this time, she lacked the amenities to rival newer, larger cruise ships, but she still had unique features such as her ballrooms, hospital, and 6,000-book library. QE2 remained the fastest cruise ship afloat (28.5 knots ), with fuel economy at this speed at 49.5 ft  to the gallon (4 m/L). While cruising at slower speeds efficiency was improved to 125 ft per gallon (10 m/L).

On 5 November 2004, Queen Elizabeth 2 became Cunard's longest serving express liner, surpassing RMS Aquitania's 35 years, while on 4 September 2005, during a call to the port of Sydney, Nova Scotia, QE2 became the longest serving Cunarder, surpassing RMS Scythia's record.

At the end of her 2005 world cruise, some pieces of her artwork were damaged when some crew members who had become inebriated at an on-board crew party, went on a vandalism rampage through the public areas of the ship. A unique tapestry of Queen Elizabeth 2, commissioned for the launch of the ship, was thrown overboard by a drunken crewman. An oil painting of Queen Elizabeth II and two other tapestries were also damaged, along with a part of the entertainment area and a lifeboat. The crew members involved were dismissed from service.

On 20 February 2007 Queen Elizabeth 2, while on her annual world cruise, met her running mate and successor flagship QM2 (herself on her maiden world cruise) in Sydney Harbour, Australia. This was the first time two Cunard Queens had been together in Sydney since the original Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth served as troop ships in 1941.

Retirement announcement
On 18 June 2007, Cunard announced that QE2 had been purchased by the Dubai investment company Istithmar for $100 million. Her retirement, in part, was forced by the oncoming June 2010 implementation of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) regulations, which would have forced large and expensive structural changes to the ship.

Retirement and final Cunard voyage
In a ceremonial display before her retirement, Queen Elizabeth 2 met MS Queen Victoria and Queen Mary 2 near the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor on 13 January 2008, with a celebratory fireworks display; Queen Elizabeth 2 and Queen Victoria had made a tandem crossing of the Atlantic for the meet. This marked the first time three Cunard Queens had been present in the same location. (Cunard stated this would be the last time these three particular ships would meet, due to the impending retirement of Queen Elizabeth 2. However, due to a change in QE2's schedule, the three ships met again in Southampton on 22 April 2008.)

QE2 shared the harbour at Zeebrugge with Queen Victoria on 19 July 2008, where the two Cunarders exchanged whistle blasts.

On 3 October 2008, QE2 set off from Cork for Douglas Bay on her farewell tour of Ireland and Britain, before heading for Liverpool. She left Liverpool and arrived in Belfast on 4 October 2008, before moving to Greenock the next day (the ship's height with funnel makes it impossible to pass under the Erskine Bridge so Clydebank is not reachable). There she was escorted by Royal Navy destroyer HMS Manchester (D95) and visited by MV Balmoral (1949). The farewell was viewed by large crowds and concluded with a firework display. QE2 then sailed around Scotland to the Firth of Forth on 7 October 2008, where she anchored in the shadow of the Forth Bridge. The next day, following an RAF flypast, she left amidst a flotilla of small craft to head to Newcastle upon Tyne, before returning to Southampton.

Final Westbound and Eastbound Transatlantic Crossings
QE2 completed her final Atlantic crossings in tandem with her successor, QM2. The ships departed for the final westbound crossing from Southampton on 10 October, sailing tandem and arriving in New York City one final time on 16 October. The Queen Mary 2 docked at the Brooklyn cruise terminal, while the QE2 docked in Manhattan. The two liners departed New York on 16 October for the final eastbound crossing, arriving in Southampton on 22 October. This marked the end of QE2's transatlantic voyages.

Final voyage
On her final arrival into Southampton, QE2 (on 11 November 2008, with 1,700 passengers and 1,000 crew on board) ran aground in the Solent near the Southampton Water entrance at 5.26 am, on a triangular sandbank roughly equidistant between the mouth of Southampton Water and East Cowes named Bramble Bank. BBC reported "Cunard has confirmed it touched the bottom at the Brambles Turn sandbank (sandback) near Calshot, Southampton Water, with three tugs attached to her stern (0530 GMT). A fourth tug secured a line to the ship's bow." Solent Coastguard stated: "Five tugs were sent out to assist her getting off the sandbank, and she was pulled off just before 6.10 am. She had been refloated and was under way under her own power and heading back to her berth in Southampton. She had only partially gone aground, and the tugs pulled her off."

Once safely back at her berth, preparations continued for her farewell celebrations. These were led by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh who toured the ship at great length. He visited areas of interest including the Engine Control Room. He also met with current and former crew members. During this time, divers were sent down to inspect the hull for any possible damage caused by the vessel's earlier mishap – none was found.

Queen Elizabeth 2 left Southampton Docks for the final time at 1915 GMT on 11 November 2008, to begin her farewell voyage by the name of "QE2's Final Voyage". After purchasing her for US$100 million her ownership passed to Nakheel Properties, a company of Dubai World, on 26 November. The decommissioning of the ship was particularly poignant for Queen Elizabeth 2's only permanent resident, Beatrice Muller, aged 89, who lived on board in retirement for nine years, at a cost of some £3,500 (~€4,300, ~$5,400) per month.

At the time of her retirement, QE2 had sailed 5.6 million miles, carried 2.5 million passengers and completed 806 transatlantic crossings.

Istithmar, Nakheel, QE2 in Dubai and Cape Town hotel proposal
Her final voyage from Southampton to Dubai under the command of Captain Ian McNaught began on 11 November 2008, arriving on 26 November in a flotilla of 60 smaller vessels, led by MY Dubai, the personal yacht of Sheikh Mohammed, ruler of Dubai, in time for her official handover the following day.

She was greeted with a fly-past from an Emirates Airbus A380 jet and a huge fireworks display, while thousands of people gathered at the Mina Rashid, waving the flags of the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. Since her arrival in Dubai QE2 remained moored at Port Rashid. Shortly after her final passengers were disembarked, she was moved forward to the cargo area of the port, to free up the passenger terminal for other cruise vessels.

She was expected to be refurbished and berthed permanently at Nakheel's Palm Jumeirah as "a luxury floating hotel, retail, museum and entertainment destination." The refurbishment planned to see Queen Elizabeth 2 transformed into a tourist destination in Dubai; however, due to the Global Economic Crisis, QE2 remained moored at Port Rashid awaiting a decision about her future.

QE2 remained an oceangoing vessel at this time, and as such, former Captain Ronald Warwick of QE2 and RMS Queen Mary 2 (QM2) and retired commodore of the Cunard Line was initially employed by V-Ships, who managed QE2 post the Cunard handed her over as the vessel's legal master, but was replaced by other V-Ships captains over time as the ship remained idle.

It was anticipated that QE2 would be moved to the Dubai Drydocks sometime in 2009 to begin a series of far-reaching refurbishments which would result in a conversion into a floating hotel.

Due to the 2008 global recession, it was rumoured that QE2's refurbishment and hotel conversion would not take place and that the ship would be resold. These rumours resulted in the owners, Istithmar, issuing a series of press releases stating that plans for QE2's conversion were ongoing, with no intention to sell. However, since arriving in Dubai the only visible exterior change to QE2 was the painting out of the Cunard titles from the ship's superstructure.

QE2 was joined in Mina Rashid by QM2 on 21 March 2009 while QM2 visited Dubai as part of her 2009 World Cruise. She was joined once again by MS Queen Victoria (QV) on 29 March 2009 as a part of her 2009 World Cruise. QM2 and QV again visited QE2 in 2010 and on 31 March 2011 the new MS Queen Elizabeth (QE) called at Dubai during her maiden world cruise – photos were arranged by Cunard to capture the occasion. QM2 called in Dubai two days after QE left.

In April 2009, an alleged concept model of the post refurbished Hotel QE2 was shown for sale on an online auction website. The model depicts a much altered QE2.

In June 2009, the Southampton Daily Echo reported that Queen Elizabeth 2 would return to the UK as an operating cruise ship. However, on 20 July 2009 the owners Nakheel confirmed rumours that QE2 would re position to Cape Town for use as a floating hotel. On 24 June 2009, QE2 made her first journey after nearly eight months of inactivity since the liner arrived in Dubai. She manoeuvred under her own power into the Dubai Drydocks for inspection and hull repainting before the then planned voyage to Cape Town's V&A Waterfront to serve there as a floating hotel for the FIFA World Cup 2010 and beyond.

On 10 July 2009, it was revealed that QE2 might sail to Cape Town, South Africa, to become a floating hotel for use primarily during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, in a Dubai World sponsored venture at the V&A Waterfront. This was confirmed by Nakheel on 20 July 2009. In preparation for this expected voyage the ship was placed into the Dubai Drydock and underwent an extensive exterior refurbishment. During this refit, the ship's underwater hull was repainted and inspected. Shortly after the refit, QE2 was registered under the flag of Vanuatu, and Port Vila was painted on her stern, replacing Southampton.

QE2 returned to Port Rashid, where it was anticipated she would soon sail for Cape Town. The arrival of QE2 in Cape Town was expected to create many local jobs including hotel staff, restaurant staff, chefs, cleaners and shop attendants, all being sourced from the local workforce. But, in January 2010, it was confirmed that QE2 would not be moved to Cape Town.

2010 sale and relocation speculation
In early 2010, due to the continued poor financial performance of Dubai World, there was much media speculation that QE2, along with other assets owned by Istithmar, Dubai World's private-equity arm, would be sold to raise capital. Despite this sale speculation, a number of alternative locations for QE2 were cited including London, Singapore, Clydebank, Japan and Fremantle, the latter showing interest in using QE2 as a hotel for the ISAF Sailing World Championships to be held in December 2011. However, as at June 2010 Nakheel's official statement regarding QE2 was that "a number of options being considered for QE2".

2011 drifting
On 28 January 2011 during a heavy dust storm, QE2 broke loose from her moorings and drifted out into the channel at Port Rashid. She was attended by pilots and tugs and safely returned to berth at Port Rashid. Images of QE2's unexpected movements appeared on-line after being taken by an observer on the ship in front of QE2.

Warm layup
Throughout 2011 and 2012, QE2 remained berthed at Port Mina Rashid in Dubai. She was maintained in a seaworthy condition and generated her own power. Each of her nine diesel generators were turned over and used to power the ship. A live-in crew of approximately 50 people maintained QE2 to a high standard. Activities include painting, maintenance, cabin checks, and overhauls of machinery. Istithmar were considering plans for QE2 which could have involved the ship sailing to an alternative location under her own power.

On 21 March 2011, QM2 called in Dubai and docked close to QE2. During the departure, the two ships sounded their horns.

2011 move to Liverpool plan, Port Rashid and QE2 development plans
On 28 September 2011 news circulated that a plan was being formulated to return QE2 to the United Kingdom by berthing her in Liverpool. Liverpool has a historic connection with Cunard Line being the first British home for the line as well as housing the iconic Cunard Building.

It was revealed that Liverpool Vision, the economic development company responsible for Liverpool's regeneration, has been involved in confidential discussions with Out of Time Concepts, a company headed by a former Chief Engineer on the ship, who recently advised its current owners on plans to turn it into a luxury hotel in Dubai.

In a letter from Out of Time Concepts to Liverpool Vision, it was explained that "The free global media attention derived from bringing home Queen Elizabeth 2 will without question promote Liverpool's new waterfront developments, its amazing architecture, its maritime and world heritage sites, its museums, its culture and its history".

On the same week that the Liverpool Vision plans were revealed, Nakheel stated that plans for QE2 to be berthed at The Palm had been dropped because they now planned to build 102 houses on the site which was once intended to be named the QE2 Precinct.

Nakheel suggested that Queen Elizabeth 2, under the ownership of Istithmar, would remain at Port Rashid to become an integral part of the growing cruise terminal. "The QE2 would be placed in a much better location", Ali Rashid Lootah, the chairman of Nakheel, told Dubai's The National newspaper "The Government of Dubai is developing an up-to-date modern cruise terminal which will mean a better environment", confirming the ship would remain in Dubai for the foreseeable future.

2011–2012 New Year's party aboard QE2
On 31 December 2011, Queen Elizabeth 2 was the location of a lavish New Year's Eve party in Dubai. The black tie event was run by Global Event Management and included over 1,000 guests. Global Event Management were offering events aboard QE2 in Dubai for 2012 and 2013.

July 2012: Hotel announcement
On 2 July 2012 in a coordinated press release, the ship's owner, operator and Port Rashid operator, DP Ports, jointly announced QE2 would re-open as a 300-bed hotel after an 18-month refit. The release claims the ship was to be refitted to restore original features, including her 1994–2008 'Heritage Trail' of classic Cunard artefacts. The ship was to be berthed alongside a redeveloped Port Rashid cruise terminal which would double as a maritime museum.

Scrapping in China, QE2 London and QE2 Asia
On 23 December 2012, it was reported that QE2 had been sold for scrapping in China for £20 million, after a bid to return her to the UK was rejected. With monthly berthing and maintenance charges of £650,000, it was reported that a Chinese salvage crew arrived at the vessel on 21 December, to replace a crew of 40 which has been maintaining the vessel since it arrived at Port Rashid. However, Cunard dismissed the reports as "pure speculation". When the ship was sold in 2007, a clause in the contract which started from her retirement in 2009 stipulated a ten-year "no onward sale" clause, without payment of a full purchase price default penalty.

The "QE2 London" Plan had included a £20 million bid for QE2 and a further £40 million refurbishment that was supposed to create more than 2,000 jobs in London, with Queen Elizabeth 2 docked near the O2 Arena. It had reportedly obtained the support of the then London Mayor Boris Johnson.

On 17 January 2013, the Dubai Drydocks World announced that Queen Elizabeth 2 would be sent to an unknown location in Asia to serve as a floating luxury hotel, shopping mall, and museum. Despite this move, the QE2 London team stated on the same day that "We believe our investors can show Dubai that QE2 London is still the best proposal".

"Bring QE2 Home" proposals
Cunard's 175th anniversary celebrations on 25 May 2015 led to renewed interest in Queen Elizabeth 2. John Chillingworth secured the backing of London mayor Boris Johnson for a plan to anchor the ship opposite The O2 Arena at Greenwich. A move to London however would require the ship to pass through the Thames Barrier. In late 2015 there was disagreement between ship preservation advocates and harbour authorities on whether a dead ship of her size could safely manoeuvre through the barrier. John Houston suggested returning the ship to Greenock as a maritime attraction, hotel and events space.

Inverclyde Council leader Stephen McCabe has called on the UK and Scottish governments to campaign to buy the ship, saying that "Bringing the QE2 home is a Herculean task, one that requires national support in Scotland and perhaps across the UK, if it has any chance of happening." In January 2016 Aubrey Fawcett, the chair of the working group to regenerate the Clyde, admitted defeat in this effort as QE2's owners refused to respond to any requests regarding her condition or sale. "Consequently, we must conclude that it is highly unlikely that Scotland features in the future plans for the vessel."

2015–2016
On 12 August 2015, the QE2 was observed to have been moved from her berth within Dubai Dry Docks, where she had been since January 2013, to a more open location within Port Rashid. On 17 November 2015, QE2 was again moved within Port Rashid, to the former cruise terminal. It was not known whether these recent moves are connected with any of the publicly known plans regarding the ship's fate.

Between May and August 2016, observers noted that the ship's lifeboats were lowered and stored on a nearby car park. Following this, the lifeboat davits were removed in September, giving the ship an altered profile on her boat deck. Subsequently, the wooden decking was removed from the deck and replaced by synthetic block flooring.

50th anniversary celebration
September 2017 marked the 50th anniversary of QE2's launch. To mark the occasion, Cunard Line, the ship's former owners, arranged a commemorative voyage aboard MS Queen Elizabeth – a 17-night cruise, with special activities and theme days. Meanwhile, in Glasgow, the QE2 Story Forum hosted a 50th anniversary conference with Captain Nick Bates as a speaker. Several books were released for the anniversary, including Building the Queen Elizabeth 2 by Cunard historian Michael Gallagher, and QE2: A 50th Anniversary Celebration by Chris Frame and Rachelle Cross.

Hotel and tourist attraction
Queen Elizabeth 2 reopened in Dubai as a floating hotel on 18 April 2018 following an extensive refurbishment. Over 2.7 million man-hours were committed to the work to upgrade and rebuild the ship to meet hotel standards. This included a full hull repaint and the replacing of Port Vila registry with Dubai on her stern. It was a 'soft opening' while remaining work continued.

On board is a new QE2 Heritage Exhibition, adjacent to the lobby, detailing the vessel's history. The ship was operated by PCFC Hotels, a division of the Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation, which is owned by the Dubai government. French hospitality group Accor took over operation of the hotel and attraction in May 2022. Accor has announced plans to further renovate the vessel; following completion there will be 447 hotel rooms.

Queen Elizabeth 2 official websites

 * Queen Elizabeth 2 official website

QE2 history websites

 * Sam Warwick's QE2 homepage – since 1996
 * BBC Hampshire – QE2 One Year On
 * Bomb threats, champagne and dead whales – 50 remarkable facts about the QE2 Daily Telegraph

title: Queen Elizabeth 2


text:
Biplane

A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a biplane wing structure has a structural advantage over a monoplane, it produces more drag than a monoplane wing. Improved structural techniques, better materials and higher speeds made the biplane configuration obsolete for most purposes by the late 1930s.

Biplanes offer several advantages over conventional cantilever monoplane designs: they permit lighter wing structures, low wing loading and smaller span for a given wing area. However, interference between the airflow over each wing increases drag substantially, and biplanes generally need extensive bracing, which causes additional drag.

Biplanes are distinguished from tandem wing arrangements, where the wings are placed forward and aft, instead of above and below.

The term is also occasionally used in biology, to describe the wings of some flying animals.

Characteristics
In a biplane aircraft, two wings are placed one above the other. Each provides part of the lift, although they are not able to produce twice as much lift as a single wing of similar size and shape because the upper and the lower are working on nearly the same portion of the atmosphere and thus interfere with each other's behaviour. In a biplane configuration with no stagger from the upper wing to the lower wing, the lift coefficient is reduced by 10 to 15 percent compared to that of a monoplane using the same airfoil and aspect ratio

The lower wing is usually attached to the fuselage, while the upper wing is raised above the fuselage with an arrangement of cabane struts, although other arrangements have been used. Either or both of the main wings can support ailerons, while flaps are more usually positioned on the lower wing. Bracing is nearly always added between the upper and lower wings, in the form of interplane struts positioned symmetrically on either side of the fuselage and bracing wires to keep the structure from flexing, where the wings are not themselves cantilever structures.

Advantages and disadvantages
The primary advantage of the biplane over a monoplane is its ability to combine greater stiffness with lower weight. Stiffness requires structural depth and where early monoplanes had to have this provided with external bracing, the biplane naturally has a deep structure and is therefore easier to make both light and strong. Rigging wires on non-cantilevered monoplanes are at a much sharper angle, thus providing less tension to ensure stiffness of the outer wing. On a biplane, since the angles are closer to the ideal of being in direct line with the forces being opposed, the overall structure can then be made stiffer. Because of the reduced stiffness, wire braced monoplanes often had multiple sets of flying and landing wires where a biplane could easily be built with one bay, with one set of landing and flying wires. The extra drag from the wires was not enough to offset the aerodynamic disadvantages from having two airfoils interfering with each other however. Strut braced monoplanes were tried but none of them were successful, not least due to the drag from the number of struts used.

The structural forces acting on the spars of a biplane wing tend to be lower as they are divided between four spars rather than two, so the wing can use less material to obtain the same overall strength and is therefore lighter. A given area of wing also tends to be shorter, reducing bending moments on the spars, which then allow them to be more lightly built as well. The biplane does however need extra struts to maintain the gap between the wings, which add both weight and drag.

The low power supplied by the engines available in the first years of aviation limited aeroplanes to fairly low speeds. This required an even lower stalling speed, which in turn required a low wing loading, combining both large wing area with light weight. Obtaining a large enough wing area without the wings being long, and thus dangerously flexible was more readily accomplished with a biplane.

The smaller biplane wing allows greater maneuverability. Following World War I, this helped extend the era of the biplane and, despite the performance disadvantages, most fighter aircraft were biplanes as late as the mid-1930s. Specialist sports aerobatic biplanes are still made in small numbers.

Biplanes suffer aerodynamic interference between the two planes when the high pressure air under the top wing and the low pressure air above the lower wing cancel each other out. This means that a biplane does not in practice obtain twice the lift of the similarly-sized monoplane. The farther apart the wings are spaced the less the interference, but the spacing struts must be longer, and the gap must be extremely large to reduce it appreciably.

As engine power and speeds rose late in World War I, thick cantilever wings with inherently lower drag and higher wing loading became practical, which in turn made monoplanes more attractive as it helped solve the structural problems associated with monoplanes, but offered little improvement for biplanes.

Stagger
The default design for a biplane has the wings positioned directly one above the other. Moving the upper wing forward relative to the lower one is called positive stagger or, more often, simply stagger. It can increase lift and reduce drag by reducing the aerodynamic interference effects between the two wings by a small degree, but more often was used to improve access to the cockpit. Many biplanes have staggered wings. Common examples include the de Havilland Tiger Moth, Bücker Bü 131 Jungmann and Travel Air 2000.

Alternatively, the lower wing can instead be moved ahead of the upper wing, giving negative stagger, and similar benefits. This is usually done in a given design for structural reasons, or to improve visibility. Examples of negative stagger include the Sopwith Dolphin, Breguet 14 and Beechcraft Staggerwing. However, positive (forward) stagger is much more common.

Bays
The space enclosed by a set of interplane struts is called a bay (much as the architectural form is used), hence a biplane or triplane with one set of such struts connecting the wings on each side of the aircraft is a single-bay biplane. This provided sufficient strength for smaller aircraft such as the First World War-era Fokker D.VII fighter and the Second World War de Havilland Tiger Moth basic trainer.

The larger two-seat Curtiss JN-4 Jenny is a two bay biplane, the extra bay being necessary as overlong bays are prone to flexing and can fail. The SPAD S.XIII fighter, while appearing to be a two bay biplane, has only one bay, but has the midpoints of the rigging braced with additional struts; however, these are not structurally contiguous from top to bottom wing. The Sopwith 1½ Strutter has a W shape cabane, however as it does not connect the wings to each other, it does not add to the number of bays.

Large transport and bombing biplanes often needed still more bays to provide sufficient strength. These are sometimes referred to as multi-bay biplanes. A small number of biplanes, such as the Zeppelin-Lindau D.I have no interplane struts and are referred to as being strutless.

Rigging
Because most biplanes do not have cantilever structures, they require rigging wires to maintain their rigidity. Early aircraft used simple wire (either braided or plain), however during the First World War, the British Royal Aircraft Factory developed airfoil section wire named RAFwire in an effort to both increase the strength and reduce the drag. Four types of wires are used in the biplane wing structure. Drag wires inside the wings prevent the wings from being folded back against the fuselage, running inside a wing bay from the forward inboard corner to the rear outboard corner. Anti-drag wires prevent the wings from moving forward when the aircraft stops and run the opposite direction to the drag wires. Both of these are usually hidden within the wings, and if the structure is sufficiently stiff otherwise, may be omitted in some designs. Indeed many early aircraft relied on the fabric covering of the wing to provide this rigidity, until higher speeds and forces made this inadequate. Externally, lift wires prevent the wings from folding up, and run from the underside of the outer wing to the lower wing root. Conversely, landing wires prevent the wings from sagging, and resist the forces when an aircraft is landing, and run from the upper wing centre section to outboard on the lower wings. Additional drag and anti-drag wires may be used to brace the cabane struts which connect the fuselage to the wings, and interplane struts, which connect the upper and lower wings together.

Sesquiplane
The sesquiplane is a type of biplane where one wing (usually the lower) is significantly smaller than the other. The word, from Latin, means "one-and-a-half wings". The arrangement can reduce drag and weight while retaining the biplane's structural advantages. The lower wing may have a significantly shorter span, or a reduced chord.

Examples include the series of Nieuport military aircraft—from the Nieuport 10 through to the Nieuport 27 which formed the backbone of the Allied air forces between 1915 and 1917. The performance of the Nieuport sesquiplanes was so impressive that the Idflieg (the German Inspectorate of flying troops) requested their aircraft manufacturers to produce copies, an effort which was aided by several captured aircraft and detailed drawings; one of the most famed copies was the Siemens-Schuckert D.I. The Albatros D.III and D.V, which had also copied the general layout from Nieuport, similarly provided the backbone of the German forces during the First World War. The Albatros sesquiplanes were widely acclaimed by their aircrews for their maneuverability and high rate of climb.

During interwar period, the sesquiplane configuration continued to be popular, with numerous types such as the Nieuport-Delage NiD 42/52/62 series, Fokker C.Vd & e, and Potez 25, all serving across a large number of air forces. In the general aviation sector, aircraft such as the Waco Custom Cabin series proved to be relatively popular. The Saro Windhover was a sesquiplane with the upper wing smaller than the lower, which was a much rarer configuration than the reverse. The Pfalz D.III also featured a somewhat unusual sesquiplane arrangement, possessing a more substantial lower wing with two spars that eliminated the flutter problems encountered by single-spar sesquiplanes.

History
The stacking of wing planes was suggested by Sir George Cayley in 1843. Hiram Maxim adopted the idea for his steam-powered test rig, which lifted off but was held down by safety rails, in 1894. Otto Lilienthal designed and flew two different biplane hang gliders in 1895, though he is better known for his monoplanes. By 1896 a group of young men in the United States, led by Octave Chanute, were flying hang gliders including biplanes and concluded that the externally braced biplane offered better prospects for powered flight than the monoplane. In 1903, the Wright Flyer biplane became the first successful powered aeroplane.

Throughout the pioneer years, both biplanes and monoplanes were common, but by the outbreak of the First World War biplanes had gained favour after several monoplane structural failures resulted in the RFC's "Monoplane Ban" when all monoplanes in military service were grounded, while the French also withdrew most monoplanes from combat roles and relegated them to training. Figures such as aviation author Bruce observed that there was an apparent prejudice held even against newly-designed monoplanes, such as the Bristol M.1, that caused even those with relatively high performance attributes to be overlooked in favour of 'orthodox' biplanes, and there was an allegedly widespread belief held at that time that monoplane aircraft were inherently unsafe during combat.

Between the years of 1914 and 1925, a clear majority of new aircraft introduced were biplanes; however, during the latter years of the First World War, the Germans had been experimenting with a new generation of monoplanes, such as the Fokker D.VIII, that might have ended the biplane's advantages earlier had the conflict not ended when it had. The French were also introducing the Morane-Saulnier AI, a strut-braced parasol monoplane, although the type was quickly relegated to the advanced trainer role following the resolution of structural issues. Sesquiplane types, which were biplanes with abbreviated lower wings such as the French Nieuport 17 and German Albatros D.III, offered lower drag than a conventional biplane while being stronger than a monoplane.

During the Interwar period, numerous biplane airliners were introduced. The British de Havilland Dragon was a particularly successful aircraft, using straightforward design to could carry six passengers on busy routes, such as London-Paris services. During early August 1934, one such aircraft, named Trail of the Caribou, performed the first non-stop flight between the Canadian mainland and Britain in 30 hours 55 minutes, although the intended target for this long distance flight had originally been Baghdad, Iraq. Despite its relative success, British production of the Dragon was quickly ended when in favour of the more powerful and elegant de Havilland Dragon Rapide, which had been specifically designed to be a faster and more comfortable successor to the Dragon. As the available engine power and speed increased, the drag penalty of external bracing increasingly limited aircraft performance. To fly faster, it would be necessary to reduce external bracing to create an aerodynamically clean design; however, early cantilever designs were either too weak or too heavy. The 1917 Junkers J.I sesquiplane utilized corrugated aluminum for all flying surfaces, with a minimum of struts; however, it was relatively easy to damage the thin metal skin and required careful handling by ground crews. The 1918 Zeppelin-Lindau D.I fighter was an all-metal stressed-skin monocoque fully cantilevered biplane, but its arrival had come too late to see combat use in the conflict.

By the 1930s, biplanes had reached their performance limits, and monoplanes become increasingly predominant, particularly in continental Europe where monoplanes had been increasingly common from the end of World War I. At the start of World War II, several air forces still had biplane combat aircraft in front line service but they were no longer competitive, and most were used in niche roles, such as training or shipboard operation, until shortly after the end of the war. The British Gloster Gladiator biplane, the Italian Fiat CR.42 Falco and Soviet I-153 sesquiplane fighters were all still operational after 1939. According to aviation author Gianni Cattaneo, the CR.42 was able to achieve success in the defensive night fighter role against RAF bombers that were striking industrial targets throughout northern Italy.

The British Fleet Air Arm operated the Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber from its aircraft carriers, and used the type in the anti-submarine warfare role until the end of the conflict, largely due to their ability to operate from the relatively compact decks of escort carriers. Its low stall speed and inherently tough design made it ideal for operations even in the often severe mid-Atlantic weather conditions. By the end of the conflict, the Swordfish held the distinction of having caused the destruction of a greater tonnage of Axis shipping than any other Allied aircraft.

Both the German Heinkel He 50 and the Soviet Polikarpov Po-2 were used with relative success in the night ground attack role throughout the Second World War. In the case of the Po-2, production of the aircraft continued even after the end of the conflict, not ending until around 1952. A significant number of Po-2s were fielded by the Korean People's Air Force during the Korean War, inflicting serious damage during night raids on United Nations bases. The Po-2 is also the only biplane to be credited with a documented jet-kill, as one Lockheed F-94 Starfire was lost while slowing down to 161 kph – below its stall speed – during an intercept in order to engage the low flying Po-2.

Later biplane trainers included the de Havilland Tiger Moth in the Royal Air Force (RAF), Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and others and the Stampe SV.4, which saw service postwar in the French and Belgian Air Forces. The Stearman PT-13 was widely used by the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) while the US Navy operated the Naval Aircraft Factory N3N. In later civilian use in the US, the Stearman became particularly associated with stunt flying such as wing-walking, and with crop dusting, where its compactness worked well at low levels, where it had to dodge obstacles.

Modern biplane designs still exist in specialist roles such as aerobatics and agricultural aircraft with the competition aerobatics role and format for such a biplane well-defined by the mid-1930s by the Udet U 12 Flamingo and Waco Taperwing. The Pitts Special dominated aerobatics for many years after World War II and is still in production.

The vast majority of biplane designs have been fitted with reciprocating engines. Exceptions include the Antonov An-3 and WSK-Mielec M-15 Belphegor, fitted with turboprop and turbofan engines respectively. Some older biplane designs, such as the Grumman Ag Cat are available in upgraded versions with turboprop engines.

The two most produced biplane designs were the 1913 British Avro 504 of which 11,303 were built, and the 1928 Soviet Polikarpov Po-2 of which over 20,000 were built, with the Po-2 being the direct replacement for the Soviet copy of the Avro 504. Both were widely used as trainers. The Antonov An-2 was very successful too, with more than 18000 built.

Ultralight aircraft
Although most ultralights are monoplanes, the low speeds and simple construction involved have inspired a small number of biplane ultralights, such as Larry Mauro's Easy Riser (1975–). Mauro also made a version powered with solar cells driving an electric motor called the Solar Riser. Mauro's Easy Riser was used by "Father Goose", Bill Lishman.

Other biplane ultralights include the Belgian-designed Aviasud Mistral, the German FK12 Comet (1997–), the Lite Flyer Biplane, the Sherwood Ranger, and the Murphy Renegade.

Avian evolution
The feathered dinosaur Microraptor gui glided, and perhaps even flew, on four wings, which may have been configured in a staggered sesquiplane arrangement. This was made possible by the presence of flight feathers on both forelimbs and hindlimbs, with the feathers on the forelimbs opening to a greater span. It has been suggested that the hind limbs could not have opened out sideways but in flight would have hung below and slightly behind the fore limbs.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Biplane


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Ignacy Krasicki

Ignacy Błażej Franciszek Krasicki (3 February 1735 – 14 March 1801), from 1766 Prince-Bishop of Warmia (in German, Ermland) and from 1795 Archbishop of Gniezno (thus, Primate of Poland), was Poland's leading Enlightenment poet ("the Prince of Poets"), a critic of the clergy, Poland's La Fontaine, author of the first Polish novel, playwright, journalist, encyclopedist, and translator from French and Greek.

His most notable literary works were his Fables and Parables (1779), Satires (1779), and poetic letters and religious lyrics, in which the artistry of his poetic language reached its summit.

Life
Ignacy Krasicki was born in Dubiecko, on southern Poland's San River, into the noble Krasicki family, which bore the title of Imperial Count. His parents were Count Jan Boży Krasicki (1704-1751) and the Count's wife, Anna Starzechowska (1706–1766) of the Nieczuja coat of arms. Ignacy was related by blood to the most illustrious families in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, including the Sapieha, Potocki, and Rzewuski families, and spent his childhood surrounded with the love and solicitude of his own family.

He attended a Jesuit school in Lwów, then studied at a Warsaw Catholic seminary (1751–54). In 1759 he took holy orders and continued his education in Rome (1759–61). Two of his brothers also entered the priesthood.

Returning to Poland, Krasicki became secretary to the Primate of Poland and developed a friendship with future King Stanisław August Poniatowski. When Poniatowski was elected king (1764), Krasicki became his chaplain. He participated in the King's famous "Thursday dinners" and co-founded the Monitor, the preeminent Polish Enlightenment periodical, sponsored by the King.

In 1766 Krasicki, after having served that year as coadjutor to Prince-Bishop of Warmia Adam Stanisław Grabowski, was himself elevated to Prince-Bishop of Warmia and ex officio membership in the Senate of the Commonwealth. This office gave him a high standing in the social hierarchy and a sense of independence. It did not, however, prove a quiet haven. The Warmia cathedral chapter welcomed its superior coolly, fearing changes. At the same time, there were growing provocations and pressures from Prussia, preparatory to seizure of Warmia in the First Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Krasicki protested publicly against external intervention.

In 1772, as a result of the First Partition, instigated by Prussia's King Frederick II ("the Great"), Krasicki became a Prussian subject. He did not, however, pay homage to Warmia's new master.

He now made frequent visits to Berlin, Potsdam and Sanssouci at the bidding of Frederick, with whom he cultivated an acquaintance. This created a difficult situation for the poet-bishop who, while a friend of the Polish king, maintained close relations with the Prussian king. These realities could not but influence the nature and direction of Krasicki's subsequent literary productions, perhaps nowhere more so than in the Fables and Parables (1779). Soon after the First Partition, Krasicki officiated at the 1773 opening of Berlin's St. Hedwig's Cathedral, which Frederick had built for Catholic immigrants to Brandenburg and Berlin. In 1786 Krasicki was called to the Prussian Academy of Sciences. His residences in the castle of the bishops of Warmia at Lidzbark Warmiński (in German, Heilsberg) and in the summer palace of the bishops of Warmia at Smolajny became centers of artistic patronage for all sectors of partitioned Poland.

After Frederick the Great's death, Krasicki continued relations with Frederick's successor.

In 1795, six years before his death, Krasicki was elevated to Archbishop of Gniezno (thus, to Primate of Poland).

Krasicki was honored by Poland's King Stanisław August Poniatowski with the Order of the White Eagle and the Order of Saint Stanisław, as well as with a special 1780 medal featuring the Latin device, "Dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori" ("The Muse will not let perish a man deserving of glory"); and by Prussia's King Frederick the Great, with the Order of the Red Eagle.

Upon his death in Berlin in 1801, Krasicki was laid to rest at St. Hedwig's Cathedral, which he had consecrated. In 1829 his remains were transferred to Poland's Gniezno Cathedral.

Czesław Miłosz describes Krasicki:

"He was a man of the golden mean, a smiling, skeptical sage [who] prais[ed] moderation and despis[ed] extremes. His was a mentality which returned to Horatian ideals of the Renaissance, to a life of contemplative retirement. This did not interfere with his talents as a courtier:  he was a favorite of [Poland's King] Stanisław August [Poniatowski], and after the [F]irst [P]artition [of Poland, in 1772], when his bishopric of Warmia became the property of Prussia, he was a favorite of King Frederick the Great.  [H]e was a cosmopolit[e] and owed his imposing literary knowledge to his readings in foreign languages, yet... he was indebted to the mentality of the Polish 'Golden Age,' and in this respect his admiration for Erasmus of Rotterdam is significant.  As a poet, he was [chiefly responsible] for that distillation of the [Polish] language which for a while toned down the chaotic richness of the Baroque. In a way, he returned to the clear and simple language of [Jan] Kochanowski, and his role in Polish poetry may be compared to that of Alexander Pope in English poetry. [H]e conceived of literature as a specific vocation, namely, to intervene as a moralist in human affairs. Since he was not pugnacious by temperament (contrary to one of his masters, Voltaire), his moralizing, rarely distinguishable from sheer play, [does not show] vitriolic accents."

Works
Ignacy Krasicki was the leading literary representative of the Polish Enlightenment—a prose writer and poet highly esteemed by his contemporaries, who admired his works for their wit, imagination, and fluid style.

Krasicki's literary writings lent splendor to the reign of Poland's King Stanisław August Poniatowski, while not directly advocating the King's political program.

Krasicki, the leading representative of Polish classicism, debuted as a poet with the strophe-hymn, "Święta miłości kochanej ojczyzny" ("O Sacred Love of the Beloved Country"), published in 1774. He was then nearing forty. It was thus a late debut that brought the extraordinary success of this strophe, which Krasicki would incorporate as part of song IX in his mock-heroic poem, Myszeida (Mouseiad, 1775). In "O Sacred Love of the Beloved Country," Krasicki formulated a universal idea of patriotism, expressed in high style and elevated tone. The strophe would later, for many years, serve as a national anthem and see many translations, including three into French.

The Prince Bishop of Warmia gave excellent Polish form to all the genres of European classicism. He also blazed paths for new genres. Prominent among these was the first modern Polish novel, Mikołaja Doświadczyńskiego przypadki (The Adventures of Nicholas Experience, 1776), a synthesis of all the varieties of the Enlightenment novel: the social-satirical, the adventure (à la Robinson Crusoe), the Utopian, and the didactic.

Tradition has it that Krasicki's mock-heroic poem, Monachomachia (War of the Monks, 1778), was inspired by a conversation with Frederick II at the palace of Sanssouci, where Krasicki was staying in an apartment that had once been used by Voltaire. At the time, the poem's publication caused a public scandal.

The most enduring literary monument of the Polish Enlightenment is Krasicki's fables: Bajki i Przypowieści (Fables and Parables, 1779) and Bajki nowe (New Fables, published posthumously in 1802). The poet also set down his trenchant observations of the world and human nature in Satyry (Satires, 1779). Other works by Krasicki include the novels, Pan Podstoli (Lord High Steward, published in three parts, 1778, 1784 and posthumously 1803), which would help inspire works by Mickiewicz, and Historia (History, 1779); the epic, Wojna chocimska (The Chocim War, 1780, about the Khotyn War); and numerous others, in homiletics, theology and heraldry.

In 1781–83 Krasicki published a two-volume encyclopedia, Zbiór potrzebniejszych wiadomości (A Collection of Essential Information), the second Polish-language general encyclopedia after Benedykt Chmielowski's Nowe Ateny (The New Athens, 1745–46).

Krasicki wrote Listy o ogrodach (Letters about Gardens) and articles in the Monitor, which he had co-founded, and in his own newspaper, Co Tydzień (Each Week).

Krasicki translated, into Polish, Plutarch, Ossian, fragments of Dante's Divine Comedy, and works by Anacreon, Boileau, Hesiod and Theocritus. He wrote a 1772 essay "On the Translation of Books" ("O przekładaniu ksiąg") and another, published posthumously in 1803, "On Translating Books" ("O tłumaczeniu ksiąg").

Fame
Krasicki's major works won European fame and were translated into Latin, French, German, Italian, Russian, Czech, Croatian, Slovene, and Hungarian. The broad reception of his works was sustained throughout the 19th century.

Krasicki has been the subject of works by poets of the Polish Enlightenment – Stanisław Trembecki, Franciszek Zabłocki, Wojciech Mier – and in the 20th century, by Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński. He has been the hero of prose works by Wincenty Pol, Adolf Nowaczyński and Henryk Sienkiewicz.

Literary reflection
Scholars have viewed Krasicki's Fables and Satires as adaptive to the culture for which they were written, and as politically charged. The characterizations were not based on reconstructions of individuals from direct observation, but were fictional constructs that reflected society's actual values. Krasicki held that Poles, and humanity generally, were governed by greed, folly, and vice.

Target audience
Evidence for this is found in the preface, "To the Children,", targeted not to children but to villagers, congregations, and the commonalty. The fables were meant to bring attention to major questions of the day, and to advocate for social reforms. Although the New Fables, the sequel to the Fables and Parables, were published posthumously in 1803, the better known Fables and Parables found their audience between 1735 and Krasicki's death in 1801, most of them being published after the First Partition of Poland, of 1772. The fables usually find their meaning in the final line, through the symbology of the tale rather than through a complex presentation of ideology, thereby readily conveying even to the illiterate the moral and the Enlightenment ideal behind it.

Enlightenment contributions
Katarzyna Zechenter argues in The Polish Review that Western historians have generally overlooked Krasicki's works, and that the publisher of Polish Fables overlooked the importance of the "political and social context contributing to [the fable's] origin." However, it is easy to see Krasicki's influence on his contemporaries and on the early 19th century, as in the case of Gabriela Puzynina, a Polish princess, poet, and diarist. In 1846 she started a newspaper for the intelligentsia of Vilnius and Warsaw, and furthered the establishment of Krasicki's Fables in Poland's suppressed political life. In her Diary of the Years 1815–1843, Puzynina focuses on the fable, "Birds in a Cage", as a commentary on the Partitions of Poland.

title: Ignacy Krasicki


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Talk:Fuzzy control system

Broken link
The link for "Introduction to Fuzzy Control Engineering" no longer exists (http://inside.mines.edu/~msimoes/tutorials/Introduction_fuzzy_logic/Intro_Fuzzy_Logic.pdf). If this is an inappropriate method for notify editors of a broken link, I apologize in advance. Jcwren (talk) 00:20, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Just for acknowledgment, this issue is already solved91.117.255.247 (talk) 15:03, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Redirect of fuzzy logic
This looks like a great article, but I'm not convinced fuzzy logic should be redirected here. Perhaps the article should be split into two parts - one about the logic (which should be in an article titled "fuzzy logic") and one about the control systems (which, after all, are an *appplication* of fuzzy logic). --Robert Merkel

 * I think they should be merged back. I didn't even know about this article until just now. Yes, fuzzy control is an application of fuzzy logic, but there's little here that's specific to control. I mean, the whole notion of fuzzy sets and fuzzy rules can be applied to virtually anything. They are fuzzy logic. "Fuzzy logic" is a bit of a misnomer since it has more to do with the set theory than actual "logic". - furrykef (Talk at me) 05:26, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * I disagree. There is a lot here that is specific to control.  For example, fuzzy logic itself does not necessarily need to deal with the processes of fuzzification and defuzzification (although these are important issues in most applications), and the block diagrams here are a good example of content that is specific to fuzzy control.
 * On an unrelated note, it would be cool to have a section explaining the differences between fuzzy control and other approaches to control systems. Perhaps even a note about that in the intro. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 19:39, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

ASCII art to proper art, please :) Martin
 * I copied over most of the images from th original article (which are all explicitly public domain), but the last one didn't seem to fit entirely with its ASCII counterpart, and one had already been re-created by a Wikipedian. Boffy b 07:03, 16 Nov 2003 (UTC)

PID vs Fuzzy
In the section "Fuzzy Sets" the author has made a reference to the PID controller and has put forward the obvious question: why do we need fuzzy controller. I think the answer is far from being scientific or true. If one has a low resolution analog digital converter the input of the PID controller will be within this resolution. If you can measure the temperature of a break with a resolution of 1/4 then you would have a low resolution input to your PID controller. Again if your actuator can move only within a space of four steps then your output will be a number between 1 and 4. Suggesting that fuzzy control's advantage is that it is suitable for cheap and low resolution systems is total nonsense. The suggestion that "a mathematical model of the control process may not exist, or may be too "expensive" in terms of computer processing power and memory" sounds childish. What expense would there be in calculating a z-transformation of a PID controller and implementing a digital controller which will have to keep the 4th or 5th past values in its memory??? --Zama Zalotta 10:01, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I've been looking for some insights in this question, I think this document is a very good response. Furthermore, another point of view may be in the complexity to build from scratch a new control system using any of this tecnologies. 91.117.255.247 (talk) 11:31, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Linguistic Variable
Well-written article. What should be underscored is that there are two constructs which play pivotal roles in fuzzy control and, more generally, in most applications of fuzzy logic. They are (a) the concept of a linguistic variable; and (b) the calculus of fuzzy-if-then rules. These constructs were introduced in my 1973 paper, "Outline of a new approach to the analysis of complex systems and decision processes," IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics SMC-3, 28-44, 1973, and my 1974 paper, "On the analysis of large scale systems," Systems Approaches and Environment Problems, H. Gottinger (ed.), 23-37. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1974. It is of historical interest to note that the concept of linguistic variable was greeted with skepticism and derision. On hearing my first presentation in France in 1972, Rudy Kalman (Kalman filtering) said, "I would like to comment briefly on Professor Zadeh’s presentation. His proposals could be severely, ferociously, even brutally criticized from a technical point of view. This would be out of place here. But a blunt question remains: Is Professor Zadeh presenting important ideas or is he indulging in wishful thinking?" Fuzzy logic and fuzzy control have survived such comments, including highly critical comments by the control systems establishment.

A metric of the impact of fuzzy logic is the number of papers and books with "fuzzy" in title. The following information was compiled by Camille Wanat, Engineering Librarian, UC Berkeley, March 13, 2007.

INSPEC Database - "fuzzy" in the title

1970-1979:  569

1980-1989:  2,403

1990-1999:  23,214

2000-present: 24,910

Total:  51,096

MathSciNet Database - "fuzzy" in the title

1970-1979:  443

1980-1989:  2,465

1990-1999:  5,487

2000-present: 6,217

Total:  14,612 --Lotfi A. Zadeh 01:23, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Type-2 fuzzy sets and systems - what do you think of this article, ready for deletion?
this note is only to alert potentially interested editors, you can delete after a week or so Power.corrupts (talk) 23:40, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

hilarious warning
isn't it a good thing if this article reads like a textbook? Wouldn't that be a welcome change from the over-the-top ramblings of self-appointed experts? Owen214 (talk) 13:18, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Tor textbooks there is Wikibooks. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.--Bomberzocker (talk) 12:39, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Wikibooks is totally unrelated. An encyclopedia is a collection of knowledge. Technical subjects very often lack detailed knowledge in their articles. I think it is very good that this article goes trough all detailed steps as a textbook. --Talianos「talk」 08:39, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Real world
This article could use a real-world (i.e. outside of academia) perspective, e.g. based on Tijfo098 (talk) 17:38, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Also, sources from non-fuzzy-systems journals/books (which potentially have an inherent bias) should be considered as well e.g. Tijfo098 (talk) 18:00, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Missing Diagram
There is a block diagram missing after the sentence, "As a general example, consider the design of a fuzzy controller for a steam turbine. The block diagram of this control system appears as follows:" Jsauter (talk) 16:11, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Announcement to remove a reference
The article is referencing under the current id #4 to a paper, written by Lotfi Zadeh. It is “Outline of a new approach to the analysis of complex systems and decision processes”. Even if the paper supports the statement, that linguistic variables are defining a fuzzy set, the reference is a poor choice. It was published in a highly specialized cybernetics journal which is “IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics.” Except from technical experts, nobody else has subscribed to this journal. Second problem is, that the article was never used in an introduction course at the university to teach control theory. If no counter argument is provided why this reference is highly important, i will delete it in the near future.--ManuelRodriguez (talk) 10:41, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:Fuzzy control system


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Laura Gemser

Laurette Marcia Gemser (born 5 October 1950) is an Indonesian-Dutch retired actress, model and costume designer. She is primarily known for her work in Italian erotic cinema, most notably the Emanuelle series. Many of her films were collaborations with directors Joe D'Amato and Bruno Mattei.

Gemser has also been credited as Moira Chen, most notably in Love Is Forever (1983).

Early life
Gemser left Indonesia in 1955, at the age of four, and moved with her parents to the Netherlands. She grew up in the Dutch city of Utrecht, where she attended the MULO Regentesseschool high school. After that, she attended the Artibus Art School in Utrecht, where she specialised in fashion design.

Career
After modelling in various magazines in the Netherlands and Belgium, in 1974 she moved to Italy to star in the erotic film Amore libero - Free Love. The film was a box office success and launched Gemser's career. She played one of the masseuses in the 1975 film Emmanuelle 2 (aka Emmanuelle, The Joys of a Woman), and later that year took the starring role in Bitto Albertini's Black Emanuelle. She starred in 5 Black Emanuelle films in less than three years.

She starred as Laotian actress Keo Sirisomphone in Michael Landon's 1983 American television film, Love Is Forever, in which she was credited as Moira Chen. During the 1970s and 1980s, she made many movies with Joe D'Amato. Gemser continued to make films, at times working with her actor husband, Gabriele Tinti (m. 1976-1991). In the 1990s, she retired from films to work on costume designing for film, and completely vanished from the public life. In 1990, she had made the costumes for what is considered one of the worst movies ever made, Troll 2.

title: Laura Gemser