CATIA (and others) for Aircraft Design from Start to Finish

In this day an age, most engineers doing design work do so with CAD software. CATIA in particular is a popular one in the aerospace industry. Here on HBA, Solidworks, also from Dassault, is popular for its cost. However, as my primary CAD software these days is CATIA, what I write will be focused on CATIA but the general process should be applicable to other software.

Now, I'm still very much a beginner in CATIA and CATIA doesn't exactly have much of a reputation for being very user friendly (Heck, toolbar buttons don't even have labels on them which looks intimidating to new users). I started this thread hoping to get help for my own design work and help others who use CAD. As I go through the design process and as I learn more about CAD I would update the process below.

Here is what I think

Define Shape and Layout
I. Organization
It is important to understand how do properly make assemblies in CATIA

The CATIA Specification Tree layout I'm using so far is as follows. It may not be the best one but it works for me right now.
---------Specification Tree-----------
-Aircraft
--Skin Surface (Product)
---Fuselage (Product)
----Fuse.Wire (Part)
-----PartBody
------Fuse.Stat.0
------Fuse.Stat.20
------...ETC...
------Water.Line.-10
------Water.Line.0
------Water.Line.10
------...ETC...
------Butt.Line.0
------Butt.Line.20
------...ETC...
----Fuse.Surf (Part)
---Wing (Product)
----Wing.Wire (Part)
----Wing.Surf (Part)
---Tail (Product)
----Tail.Wire (Part)
----Tail.Surf (Part)

--------------Process----------------
Define Shape and Layout
I. Fuselage Cross Sections and Guide Curves
In CATIA,These should be made in an easily modified manner for conceptual design phase. It is important that the planes should be made in such a manner that they adjust themselves when geometry in the guide curves is modified. In CATIA, I use Project 3D Elements and Intersect 3D Elements a lot. For example, when I what to get the intersection of a curve in the side view sketch with a cross curve, I use the Intersect 3D Elements. When I want to project entire curves rather than just get intersections, I use Project 3D Elements.
a. Side
b. Top
c. Cross curves - Cross curves are created in reference to the side and top profiles. Modifications to side and top view curves for the fuselage would cause the cross curves to automatically adjust to form.
Here especially, Project 3D Elements and Intersect 3D Elements are very important. Once you get the side and top views, you need to get the points and line there into the sketch for a cross curve. Unlike some other CAD software where you can, from within a sketch, quickly press on a feature or curve in another sketch to reference them, in CATIA you need to use Project 3D Elements and Intersect 3D Elements. For example, if you were to make a cube in CATIA then make a sketch on one of the surface, you will not be able to select any edge or part of that cube from within that sketch. You would need to use Project 3D Elements and Intersect 3D Elements here. This takes some getting used to but its easy enough.

CATIA also handles conics when you need to make one for, say, a cross curve. Here, I'd create construction lines that form a rectangle within which I define the cross curves. For this, I need to get get the intersection points from the side and top views. Intersect 3D Elements does the job and I get points that define the location of the top of the cross curve, the bottom and it's outermost side. Using these as guides, I make a rectangle with construction lines. I then make a conic curve at the top and at the bottom using the Conic feature. And done. Repeat as necessary for more cross curves.
d. Create surfaces connecting wireframe.
II. Surfaces - Wings, tails, canards, etc
a. Set up parameters for things such as wing span, aspect ratio, root chord, dihedral, sweep, etc
Parameters are very powerful and the designer would benefit greatly from using them. However they and formulas may be tricky to get used to. It's not as easy for me to do as in Siemens NX, another CAD software that is used in the aerospace industry.
b. Set up layout curves for the various surfaces as necessary with their dimensions being tied to the parameters as necessary. This allows easy conceptual design iterations with CATIA
c. Set up airfoil curves in a manner that they scale themselves to the wing layout geometry i.e. changing the mean chord of the wing results in an airfoil that scales to fit.
d. Use surface to "cover" wing

More to come. I'll also add more detail about the specific CATIA features I'm using at each point and how I'm doing it.
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If you do things different or have suggestions, please do leave a post.