Aircraft Mockup

Steel - 8.7m x 11.6m x 2.7m (L x W x H)

SKILLS USED: SolidWorks CAD, SolidWorks Simulation, Metal Fabrication (cutting, grinding, turning, milling, MIG welding)

A quick (2 week) aircraft mockup I designed and fabricated. The gag involved crashing and destroying the plane, so we needed a full size/weight mockup to test and work on before receiving the real aircraft (style of plane pictured above).

This is the cad model I created. Simple shapes and angles were important to expedite fabrication. A central spine held 6 sided frames to represent the shape of the fuselage, the less cutting and compound angles the better. I used CAD to match the expected weight of my model to the real aircraft and estimate deflection of the wingtips.

With the help of an assistant I used my CAD drawings to fabricate the mockup out of steel (cutting, grinding, MIG welding, turning, rotabroach).

The final dimensions, weight, and deflection all came out as expected.

Unfortunately again due to a change in the script the project did not continue and my plane’s maiden voyage was a one way direct flight to the great metal skip in the sky.