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Plastic BT-15

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Deuelly

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2012
Messages
374
Location
Marshall, MN
I was reading through the August 1, 1945 addition of Aero Digest today. In the magazine they have an article called “Development of Molded Fiber Glass for Primary Aircraft Structure”. In the article they fabricated parts for a BT-15 out of a glass-balsa sandwich. The article states that “The first glass cloth-balsa sandwich fuselage was completed in November 1943”.
Now, I’ve seen and read some of the “Plastic Spitfire” post’s but this composite is different. I’ve attached some pictures from the article so you can see some of what I’m talking about. Sorry about the quality, but I took them with my phone. The structure actually looks like one that you would see pulled out of a mold in this day and age, not 70 years ago.
The point of this thread is 1) It’s an amazingly detailed article full of tables and charts that anyone interested in the history of composites should read and 2) Would this be the first known testing of actual glass sandwich core in aircraft or was there a lot of this going on in the 40’sand even earlier? I ask here because of the vast knowledge base. Thanks in advance for anything I may learn.
 

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