Recent content by orion

What are you trying to achieve? Retail codes, such as anyone here might use, are good for comparing one section versus another (as long as both are run in the same software), but should hardly be considered reliable for much of anything else. And this applies especially to anything where...

I think we need to clarify a few things. First off, if you pay for it you own it, regardless of schedule or time involvement. As long as the customer continues to make consistent and timely payments, all work and design rights trickle on through to himself. And as "Timberwolf" indicated...

Keep in mind though that the original idea of this concept/discussion was the minimizing of part count. Doing this in wood would be very time consuming and would most likely end up with as many parts as in a conventionally built up wing. Then given the issues of wood working, the resulting...

The horizontal (pictured) is a one piece stressed skin structure - no spar. The original design for the wing was similar to the tail but we couldn't figure out how we were going to handle the huge parts so a left and right were built. In this case I gave in to the design needs and fabricated a...

For the horizontal tail I made my own skin tool off of a machined foam plug. The mold itself was made from a combination of glass and graphite arranged in a sandwich pattern where the glass acted like the core. Total thickness of the tool was just shy of 1/4". Parts were made from a Toray...

Engineering rates vary quite a bit and the actual number is mostly dependent on experience and whether it's a long term project (engineer's involvement through first flight or longer) or whether the design will be done piecemeal. The rates for the latter can be as much as about $180 per hour...

4 foot by 12 foot; 1/2" thick. Uni glass skins and 8 pcf aluminum honeycomb core TEKLAM Corp - Providing the Industry with Laminated Products

Ply is generally a relatively weak material so in a structure like this, the load carrying capacity of the material would most likely be far below what you need, unless of course you seriously bump up the gauges. But then you have a massive weight issue. True, I have not done any studies in...

The sandwich panels (cut with waterjet) is what we're working with now. But they are expensive - about $1,100 per sheet (fiberglass).

Very flexible airframe since it can be outfitted with a variety of engine levels. Cute and simple - I like it.

Holy cow!

Eliminate conventional spars and ribs. Use stressed skin and an internal web, similar in cross section to corrugated cardboard. Mold entire fuselage shell and an interior reinforcement - the latter doubles as internal outfitting for seats, baggage, etc. Here's the picture of our race plane's...

We looked at this process some time back and I can almost guarantee you that you're unlikely to make the weight limits of an ultralight using plywood. In our case the plane was IO-320 to IO-360 powered so the wood weight penalty was not as great and it did make the assembly a lot easier but as...

This used to be ElectroImpact's primary business - Welcome to Electroimpact. The developed a series of electric rivet squeezers, each capable of setting a variety of rivets in a single, measured punch.

Love the compound aircraft in the film but too many reality issues in the practical world to make that feasible in the way that it's presented there.