Model Airplanes

Eric Berger

Here’s a closer look at “Cosmic Girl,” the 747-400 plane that one day may launch rockets.

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   Eric Berger

   Here’s a closer look at “Cosmic Girl,” the 747-400 plane that one day may launch rockets.

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   Eric Berger

   The plane chosen by Virgin Galactic just happened to be already named “Cosmic Girl.”

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   Article source: http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/12/meet-cosmic-girl-the-plane-that-would-launch-rockets-into-space/

Denbigh High School Aviation Academy’s wind tunnel is about to get a major lift.

The magnet program announced Thursday night at an open house for interested students that it has secured a $58,000 grant from Alcoa Foundation to upgrade the current tunnel. Right now, it occupies the space of a classroom at the campus at the Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport.

The money will be used to purchase equipment that will help the more than 300 students in the academy better understand what happens to planes in flight. A helium bubble generator will show how force and pressure affect an airplane model, while cameras and computer screens will let students view what’s happening inside the tunnel.

Money from the grant also will fund materials to build models, and lesson plans will be reworked to integrate the new capabilities.

“It’s going to be exciting,” said junior Cameron Jones. “We get to build bigger models, test higher wind speeds. It’ll be fun.”

Junior Jasmine Lewis agreed.

“It means we get more opportunities, and I think more jobs or colleges will like to look into us to see what we’re doing and actually want to have us work with them,” 17-year-old Lewis said.

The Alcoa Foundation, Alcoa Howmet’s philanthropic arm, wanted to get involved with the Aviation Academy to help prepare students interested in a vocational career. With its nearby plants that manufacture parts on almost every commercial plane flying today, it was the right fit.

“The whole purpose of the program really

Article source: http://www.dailypress.com/news/education/dp-nws-aviation-academy-20151203-story.html

BRENTWOOD — Perched atop a table in Rex Bordwell’s garage is the crown jewel of his collection, a model airplane that was 26 years in the making.

The scaled-down and fully operational replica of World War II’s North American B-25B is a paragon of precision, almost entirely handmade from nose to tail with a level of detail that reflects the innumerable hours the Brentwood resident lavished on his project.

“This is not a kit — it’s all my own design,” said Bordwell with a note of satisfaction as he circled the aircraft, inspecting it from different angles.

With an 8-foot-5-inch wingspan and nearly 7 feet long, the twin-engine model is one-eighth the size of the 16 bombers that made history in 1942 as the first U.S. planes to bomb Japan following its attack on Pearl Harbor.

The inspiration for the undertaking came from happy boyhood memories of assembling plastic models coupled with Bordwell’s knowledge of how the real ones operated, an expertise he fine-tuned as a mechanic in the U.S. Air Force.

“I knew how they worked and what could go wrong with them,” said the 67-year-old former mechanical engineer.

He’d always admired the look of the B-25B in particular — the shape of its nose, the twin tails — and he loved that it had flown in the mission that delivered a crippling blow to Japan’s morale.

And so in 1989 Bordwell bought the parts that would give the fuselage and wings their shape, the first of what would be only a few types

Article source: http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_29195189/brentwood-man-finishes-model-airplane-after-26-years

When the Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991, the newly independent states within its former domain inherited enormous stockpiles of weapons the Red Army left behind.

One of the most interesting cases involved the air force of the tiny former Soviet republic of Moldova. The new republic’s inventory consisted of 34 MiG-29 Fulcrums, eight Mi-8 Hip helicopters and a handful of transport aircraft — a sizeable force for such a small state. To put Moldova’s size into perspective, the country’s population is smaller than the metro area of Portland, Oregon.

Moldova couldn’t afford to maintain the fleet and, to make matters worse, was in a deep recession. Meanwhile, the United States feared Moldova would sell the MiG-29s to Iran, which could use them to bolster its own fleet of Fulcrums. Washington was also wary that Moldova might pass the technology to Iran’s rivals since the fleet included 14 MiG-29C variants configured to deliver nuclear weapons.

(Recommended: 5 Turkish Weapons of War Russia Should Fear)

So in 1997, the United States deployed its most powerful tool to get the MiG-29s for itself. That tool … was money. Washington bought 21 of the MiG-29s — including 14 C models, one B model and six A models — and flew them in pieces on C-17 transport planes to Dayton, Ohio.

Not only was purchasing the jets a good way of ensuring they did not end up in Tehran’s hands, it gave Washington an

Article source: http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/exposed-america-purchased-21-lethal-russian-mig-29-fighters-14486

3-D printing, the process of printing a tangible structural element, is common within a variety of fields: you can find it in dental replacements, artificial hip-joints but also for manufacturing tools.

Until now, parts manufactured using 3-D technology have been unable to compete with traditionally made components. But that is rapidly changing – especially within the realms of the aviation industry where weight is a major consideration when it comes to manufacturing.

Concept Laser, a German company, is at the forefront of high-quality 3-D printing. The fledgling company was responsible for building the first such printer capable of producing real components with a method called Selective Laser Melting (SLM).

SLM builds up components by putting thin layers of melted metal on top of each other

Melting, rather than sintering

With that, it was made possible to use common industrial alloys, like steel or titanium in 3-D printing. Before the advent of the SLM, there were 3-D printers on the market, but they only had the capabilites to sinter rare and uncommon alloys in a process similar to that used during the production of ceramics. But the end product was not very durable.

In order to properly melt the metal, inventor and company founder, Frank Herzog, had to overcome several hurdles. He needed to develop a means of circumventing the problem of tension build-up within the metal during the melting process which ultimately led to components cracking.

“I watched a toolmaker welding,” he recalls, “he did not do one continuous weld,

Article source: http://www.dw.com/en/future-prize-3d-printing-enables-aviation-industry-to-flourish/a-18886955