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  1. Matt G.

    Plywood Weight Comparison

    Having built a great deal of furniture/cabinetry using plywood from Menards, including the 1/4" birch you are contemplating, I would not, under any circumstances, use it in an aircraft. It is fine for furniture, but there are hidden flaws (terrible ply overlaps, voids, etc) that cannot be seen...
  2. Matt G.

    Boeing - Design Issues...

    More reputable source says hydraulic fluid: https://avherald.com/h?article=516053ed&opt=0
  3. Matt G.

    Drilling metal tube

    My first drill press was an old Craftsman from the 70's that had like 20 speeds, including some very slow ones, but this silly 1/4" V-belt, so it took almost nothing to stall it at the lower speeds. Hole saws were impossible to use. I replaced it with a much older Delta benchtop drill press...
  4. Matt G.

    Drilling metal tube

    What are you using for cutting oil?
  5. Matt G.

    Anyone Seen/heard of Peter Garrison's Melmoth2 lately?

    http://www.aerologic.com/M2website/texts/Progress.htm
  6. Matt G.

    Steel vs Aluminum Rivets

    You are asking a lot of questions that cannot be answered without performing structural analysis of your design.
  7. Matt G.

    Steel vs Aluminum Rivets

    Not enough info provided to answer. The shear and tension strengths you provided in another post are not matching up with the rivets you said you are using, and the bearing strength of 5052 sheet varies quite a bit depending on what temper it is.
  8. Matt G.

    Steel vs Aluminum Rivets

    No....good design practice in aircraft is for the joints to be bearing critical in the parts being fastened together instead of shear critical in the fasteners, or stated another way, the fastener shear strength should be higher than the bearing strength of the parts. This way, loading can...
  9. Matt G.

    Calculating Wing pitching moment/torsion using Cm?

    A FOS of 4 is not customary on continuously-fastened aircraft structure. Other larger factors are used where there is point loading or a critical non-redundant load path or in the special factors outlined in the Part 23/25 regulations.
  10. Matt G.

    Horrible news from Vans Aircraft

    I likely speak for more than just myself when I say we do NOT find that acceptable. That would not be in any way acceptable on any FAR23/25 type-certificated aircraft. Lots of parts have various types of NDI required by engineering to be done on them as part of the manufacturing process to...
  11. Matt G.

    JAL on fire in Tokyo

    You've seen the pics of the (nearly all metal) Dash-8 it hit, right? Nothing left but the engines...
  12. Matt G.

    Pros and Cons on Composites vs Aluminum

    That would be correct...large aircraft use 2xxx and 7xxx alloys almost exclusively. Some OEMs use 6xxx alloys for some lightly-loaded systems brackets. Lots of things in larger aircraft are sized by outright failure rather than buckling. Hence the near exclusive use of stronger alloys.
  13. Matt G.

    Rivet Shear Test

    Nooooo.... It is poor design practice to design shear critical joints. Bearing critical joints are safer. If one fastener overloads, the additional load is redistributed to adjacent fasteners until the joint is loaded evenly. If the joint is shear critical, the fastener fails, and the load...
  14. Matt G.

    Why is GA continuing its demise?

    In my current group of engineers at work, (~20 people), We have six that are pilots or in the midst of flight training. This is the highest amount I have known in my entire career so far (most of the groups I have been in I was the only pilot), and all but one of them is younger than me, and I'm...
  15. Matt G.

    Could a wooden sailplane beat a fibre glass/carbon sailplane in L/D ?

    In Kansas, if you don't fly in the wind, you don't fly.
  16. Matt G.

    Could a wooden sailplane beat a fibre glass/carbon sailplane in L/D ?

    Ability to penetrate into the wind is important. My SH-1 (wooden, 34:1 on paper) has pretty similar real world glide performance to a Ka6E, but goes into the wind much better. This is helpful where I live for XC soaring, as many days with strong lift also include 20mph wind. Most any modern...
  17. Matt G.

    Is there a "not-so-bad" place for an airfoil discontinuity?

    I'd say behind the laminar to turbulent transition. Similarly, I've noticed some aircraft flush riveted around the leading edge, with protruding head rivets further aft, likely for the same reason.
  18. Matt G.

    Horrible news from Vans Aircraft

    The HAZ in steel is probably hard enough that the cut edge would be very hard and difficult to machine. I know it is for mild steel cut with a plasma cutter. I doubt aluminum would become so hard as to be un-machineable though. Every OEM I have dealt with that allows thermal cutting of parts...
  19. Matt G.

    Horrible news from Vans Aircraft

    For fatigue life, a reamed hole is better than a deburred hole, and a deburred hole is better than an as-drilled hole. A (good quality) punched hole is probably slightly better than a drilled hole, but I don't have any experience, analysis-wise, with that. I have not dealt with analysis of...
  20. Matt G.

    HELP in aircraft design

    Gotta walk before you can run. Some years of experience will be helpful. I wouldn't recommend designing an airplane straight out of college. Certainly not if one thinks they are going to take on Boeing and Airbus... Since I was in high school, my goal has been to design, build, and fly my own...
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