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).

I used an existing model from the internet that I could scale and use as a guide to build my framework within.

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.

~85mm deflection at the wingtips.

Max stress was higher than I would have liked (1.75 Factor of Safety), but if the project continued I had thought of mitigation plans to put in place.

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.