In response to Reply #9 by Billy.
Dustbin faired bikes do not, as a general rule, have the true airfoil shape when viewed from overhead. There have been some really strange handling problems these bikes. Front end washouts, mainly. Literature from the 1950's when these fairings were used in grand prix racing mentions the problems were mostly in cross-winds. My feelings are the rider was leaning into a cross-wind with attached flow on both sides of the bike, and suddenly the flow detached from the lee side. This sudden detachment and resultant loss of pressure caught the rider by surprise and he could not compensate for it quickly enough and down he went.
One task in building the Triumph streamlining was to minimize the chances of this happening. The roundish nose on an airfoil shape, with no flat slides, is a deliberate effort to provide predictable handling for the reasons mentioned in Reply 9. It seems to be working. The bike has been run in some pretty bad combinations of headwinds and crosswinds with no problems.
These ideas are my own and I might be full of carp. No real scientific experiments to back them up.
