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Denny wrote:
> I refer the original poster to Low Power Laminar A/C Design by P.
> Strojnik... A series of three books... Fascinating reading... The EAA
> should have them at the book store...
Thanks! I will take a look.
>
> But, to answer the question, the biggest impediment to the home builder
> for making a monocoque fuselage in wood is the need for a plug to cold
> mold or laminate the wood onto... If the fuse is symmetrical, a half
> plug will work and join the two halves later... The favored material is
> cement for making the plug, mostly for cost reasons I suspect - it
> certainly would hamper portability...
> The Mosquito was done this way, as was (I believe) much of the Spruce
> Goose... Much of the Cirrus airplanes are plug molded as semi-monocoque
> structures, but I do not think they use cement plugs :)
>
> denny
I saw a concrete mold like that in a picture of lockheed factory taken
when the vega was being produced.
I have been very interested in sorting out what manufacturing techniques
would be most appropriate for mass production of light aircraft given
modern tooling.
Robotic welding is of high enough quality to handle steel tubing these
days. Obviously filiment wound composits present very high levels of
automation as well, but a much higher material cost. Aluminum obviously
has a reasonably high material cost, good workability, but the size and
flexibility of the sheets would concern me somewhat. I would be inclined to
guess aluminum requires more skill in jigging than the alternatives.
I wonder whether filiment winding could be used with non-standard
materials. Could you filiment wind a fuselage with say... twine? Sounds
bizarre, but if it is encased in epoxy it might have a hope of
achieving a certain level of strength. If course most of the cost is
probably in the epoxy and not in the filiment.
Suprisingly I keep coming back to wood as material for mass production
since the whole of the structure could be made of one material. There
are obvious logistic benefits there, and I think most wood techniques
could be practically achieved robotically.
If you designed an aircraft to leverage modern production lines, what
would it be made of?
Thanks!
Matt
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Re: Why no plywood monocoque homebuilts?
