Model Airplanes

Three-dimensional-printing enthusiasts have said for years the technology will do nothing short of revolutionize industries. Now–finally–3-D printers are starting to live up to the hype: Look no further than the runway at your nearest airport.

The $404 billion commercial aircraft manufacturing industry is embracing 3-D-printed airplane parts in a big way, according to the MIT Technology Review. Three-dimensional printing, also known as additive manufacturing, has been around since the 1980s, but only recently has the technology become sophisticated enough to make complex objects like airplane parts. 

GE has a 3-D-printed fuel nozzle that is almost ready to hit the market. This new nozzle is built as one single part, while the previous model consisted of 18 individual pieces that had to be manufactured separately and welded together. A jet engine currently being developed by GE uses 19 of the nozzles, and the company plans to make 30,000 of them each year. The 3-D-printed nozzle is also 25 percent lighter than its predecessor, which means lower fuel costs for airlines. All of this should eventually mean lower ticket prices for travelers.

Other aircraft manufacturers like Airbus also have 3-D plane parts almost ready for commercial use. And the trend is catching on throughout the larger manufacturing world: The Tech Review says companies bought 808 printers for metal manufacturing in 2015, up from 353 in 2013. This is huge news for the 3-D-printing industry–the printers can cost up to a million dollars each.

Other airplane parts currently being 3-D printed include several elements of turboprop engines and a piece of equipment that houses temperature sensors.

With this

Article source: http://www.inc.com/kevin-j-ryan/the-400-billion-industry-that-could-make-the-3-d-printing-industry-explode.html

Each year the Government Accountability Office (GAO) releases its “Additional Opportunities to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and Duplication and Achieve Other Financial Benefits” report, which is a really long name for a list of ways the federal government could stop squandering our money.

This year’s report clocks in at nearly 300 pages, with a substantial portion addressing waste in the Department of Defense (DoD), which alone accounts for nearly half of Washington’s discretionary spending. Though the Pentagon is all too often treated as a sacred cow in the federal budget, immune to even the commonsense accountability of a full audit, the GAO’s findings show that there is plenty of fat to trim.

Worse yet, this money is being diverted from actually important DoD spending. While Washington wastes, marines are literally scrounging up airplane parts at museums.

Here are three important reforms from the report:

1. Stop buying stuff we don’t need. Last year, the Pentagon spent $118 million to dispose of excess conventional ammunition. In plainer terms: Our government dropped more money than most of us will have over the course of our entire lives to get rid of extra bullets. Oh, and that’s after the DoD already took the GAO’s advice to send some of its extra stuff to other government agencies that wanted it.

The GAO recommends “that DOD develop a systematic means to make information available to other government agencies on excess ammunition,” a plan the Pentagon agreed to do last year and then did not do. Perhaps, however,

Article source: http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/04/19/three-important-pentagon-reforms-make-america-safer-save-billions-every-year/

The world’s biggest aircraft makers, Boeing Co. and Airbus Group SE, are enjoying record order books but, for employees at the companies and their suppliers, the good times are over.

Customers are growing increasingly frugal, making it harder for the two rivals to secure lucrative deals, as appetite wanes for some of their most-profitable planes

Last month, Boeing said it would eliminate 4,000 jobs at its commercial airplane…

Article source: http://www.wsj.com/articles/plane-makers-employees-buffeted-despite-booming-orders-1461066298