De Havilland DH.60 Moth
The de Havilland DH.60 Moth is a 1920s British two-seat touring and training aircraft that was developed into a series of aircraft by the de Havilland Aircraft Company. The DH.60 was developed from the larger DH.51 biplane, the first flight of the Cirrus powered prototype DH.60 Moth was carried out by Geoffrey de Havilland at the works airfield at Stag Lane on 22 February 1925. The Moth was a biplane of wooden construction, it had a plywood covered fuselage and fabric covered surfaces. A useful feature of the design was its folding wings which allowed owners to hangar the aircraft in much smaller spaces, the Secretary of State for Air Sir Samuel Hoare became interested in the aircraft and the Air Ministry subsidised five flying clubs and equipped them with Moths. The prototype was modified with a rudder, as used on the production aircraft. Deliveries commenced to flying schools in England, one of the early aircraft was fitted with an all-metal twin-float landing gear to become the first Moth seaplane.
The original production Moths were known as Cirrus I Moths, three aircraft were modified for the 1927 Kings Cup Race with internal modifications and a Cirrus II engine on a lowered engine mounting. The original designation of DH. 60X was soon changed to Cirrus II Moth, the production run for the DH. 60X Moth was short as it was replaced by variants, but it was still available to special order. Although the Cirrus engine was reliable, its manufacture was not and it depended on components salvaged from World War I–era 8-cylinder Renault engines and therefore its numbers were limited by the stockpiles of surplus Renaults. Therefore, de Havilland decided to replace the Cirrus with a new engine built by his own factory, in 1928 when the new de Havilland Gipsy I engine was available a company DH.60 Moth G-EBQH was re-engined as the prototype of the DH. 60G Gipsy Moth. Next to the increase in power, the advantage of this update was that the Gipsy was a completely new engine available in as great a number as the manufacture of Moths necessitated.
The new Gipsy engines could simply be built in-house on a side by side with the production-line for Moth airframes. This enabled de Havilland to control the process of building a Moth airframe and all, streamline productivity. While the original DH.60 was offered for a relatively modest £650, by 1930 the price of a new Gipsy-powered Moth was still £650, a metal-fuselage version of the Gipsy Moth was designated the DH. 60M Moth and was originally developed for overseas customers, particularly Canada. The DH. 60M was licence-built in Australia, Canada, in 1931 a variant of the DH. 60M was marketed for military training as the DH. 60T Moth Trainer. In 1931 with the upgrade of the Gipsy engine as the Gipsy II, de Havilland inverted the engine, the engine was fitted into a Moth aircraft, which was re-designated the DH. 60G-III Moth Major. The sub-type was intended for the trainer market and some of the first aircraft were supplied to the Swedish Air Force. The DH. 60T was re-engined with the Gipsy III and was re-designated the DH.
60T Tiger Moth, the DH. 60T Tiger Moth was modified with swept back mainplanes, the cabane struts were moved forward to improve egress from the front cockpit in case of emergency
Kevlar
Kevlar is the registered trademark for a para-aramid synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont in 1965, this material was first commercially used in the early 1970s as a replacement for steel in racing tires. Typically it is spun into ropes or fabric sheets that can be used as such or as an ingredient in composite material components and it is used to make modern drumheads that withstand high impact. When used as a material, it is suitable for mooring lines. A similar fiber called Twaron with roughly the same structure was developed by Akzo in the 1970s, commercial production started in 1986. Poly-paraphenylene terephthalamide – branded Kevlar – was invented by Polish-American chemist Stephanie Kwolek while working for DuPont, in 1964, her group began searching for a new lightweight strong fiber to use for light but strong tires. The polymers she had been working with at the time, poly-p-phenylene-terephthalate and polybenzamide, formed liquid crystal while in solution, the solution was cloudy, opalescent upon being stirred, and of low viscosity and usually was thrown away.
However, Kwolek persuaded the technician, Charles Smullen, who ran the spinneret, to test her solution and her supervisor and her laboratory director understood the significance of her accidental discovery and a new field of polymer chemistry quickly arose. By 1971, modern Kevlar was introduced, Kwolek was not very involved in developing the applications of Kevlar. Kevlar is synthesized in solution from the monomers 1, 4-phenylene-diamine, the result has liquid-crystalline behavior, and mechanical drawing orients the polymer chains in the fibers direction. Hexamethylphosphoramide was the solvent initially used for the polymerization, but for safety reasons, DuPont replaced it by a solution of N-methyl-pyrrolidone, as this process had been patented by Akzo in the production of Twaron, a patent war ensued. Kevlar production is expensive because of the difficulties arising from using concentrated sulfuric acid, needed to keep the water-insoluble polymer in solution during its synthesis and spinning.
Several grades of Kevlar are available, Kevlar K-29 – in industrial applications, such as cables, asbestos replacement, brake linings, Kevlar K49 – high modulus used in cable and rope products. When Kevlar is spun, the fiber has a tensile strength of about 3,620 MPa. The polymer owes its high strength to the many inter-chain bonds and these inter-molecular hydrogen bonds form between the carbonyl groups and NH centers. Additional strength is derived from aromatic stacking interactions between adjacent strands, the presence of salts and certain other impurities, especially calcium, could interfere with the strand interactions and care is taken to avoid inclusion in its production. Kevlars structure consists of relatively rigid molecules tend to form mostly planar sheet-like structures rather like silk protein. Kevlar maintains its strength and resilience down to temperatures, in fact
Fixed-wing aircraft
A fixed-wing aircraft is an aircraft, such as an aeroplane, which is capable of flight using wings that generate lift caused by the vehicles forward airspeed and the shape of the wings. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft, in which the form a rotor mounted on a spinning shaft. Glider fixed-wing aircraft, including free-flying gliders of various kinds and tethered kites, powered fixed-wing aircraft that gain forward thrust from an engine include powered paragliders, powered hang gliders and some ground effect vehicles. The wings of an aircraft are not necessarily rigid, hang-gliders, variable-sweep wing aircraft. Most fixed-wing aircraft are flown by a pilot on board the aircraft, kites were used approximately 2,800 years ago in China, where materials ideal for kite building were readily available. Some authors hold that leaf kites were being flown much earlier in what is now Indonesia, by at least 549 AD paper kites were being flown, as it was recorded in that year a paper kite was used as a message for a rescue mission.
Ancient and medieval Chinese sources list other uses of kites for measuring distances, testing the wind, lifting men and communication for military operations. Stories of kites were brought to Europe by Marco Polo towards the end of the 13th century, although they were initially regarded as mere curiosities, by the 18th and 19th centuries kites were being used as vehicles for scientific research. This machine may have been suspended for its flight, some of the earliest recorded attempts with gliders were those by the 9th-century poet Abbas Ibn Firnas and the 11th-century monk Eilmer of Malmesbury, both experiments injured their pilots. In 1799, Sir George Cayley set forth the concept of the aeroplane as a fixed-wing flying machine with separate systems for lift, propulsion. Cayley was building and flying models of fixed-wing aircraft as early as 1803, in 1856, Frenchman Jean-Marie Le Bris made the first powered flight, by having his glider LAlbatros artificiel pulled by a horse on a beach.
In 1884, the American John J. Montgomery made controlled flights in a glider as a part of a series of gliders built between 1883-1886, other aviators who made similar flights at that time were Otto Lilienthal, Percy Pilcher, and Octave Chanute. In the 1890s, Lawrence Hargrave conducted research on wing structures and his box kite designs were widely adopted. Although he developed a type of aircraft engine, he did not create. Sir Hiram Maxim built a craft that weighed 3.5 tons, in 1894, his machine was tested with overhead rails to prevent it from rising. The test showed that it had enough lift to take off, the craft was uncontrollable, which Maxim, it is presumed, because he subsequently abandoned work on it. By 1905, the Wright Flyer III was capable of fully controllable, stable flight for substantial periods, the flight was certified by the FAI. This was the first controlled flight, to be officially recognised, the Bleriot VIII design of 1908 was an early aircraft design that had the modern monoplane tractor configuration
Homebuilt aircraft
Homebuilt aircraft, known as amateur-built aircraft or kit planes, are constructed by persons for whom this is not a professional activity. These aircraft may be constructed from scratch, from plans, or from assembly kits, in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, homebuilt aircraft may be licensed Experimental under FAA or similar local regulations. With some limitations, the builder of the aircraft must have done it for their own education and recreation rather than for profit, in the US, the primary builder can apply for a repairmans certificate for that airframe. The repairmans certificate allows the holder to perform and sign off on most of the maintenance, alberto Santos-Dumont was the first to offer for free construction plans, publishing drawings of its Demoiselle in the June 1910 edition of Popular Mechanics. The first aircraft to be offered for sale as plans, rather than a completed airframe, was the Baby Ace in the late 1920s, homebuilt aircraft gained in popularity in the US in 1924 with the start of the National Air Races, held in Dayton, Ohio.
These races required aircraft with useful loads of 150 lb and engines of 80 cubic inches or less, the years after Charles Lindberghs transatlantic flight brought a peak of interest between 1929 and 1933. During this period many aircraft designers and pilots were self-taught, in 1946 Goodyear restarted the National Air Races, including a class for aircraft powered by 200 cubic inch and smaller engines. The midget racer class spread nationally in the US and this led to calls for acceptable standards to allow use of amateur-built aircraft. By the mid-1950s both the US and Canada once again allowed amateur-built aircraft to specified standards and limitations, homebuilt aircraft are generally small, one to four-seat sportsplanes which employ simple methods of construction. Engines are most often the same as, or similar to, the use of automotive engines helps to reduce costs, but many builders prefer dedicated aircraft engines, which are perceived to have better performance and reliability. Other engines that have used include chainsaw and motorcycle engines.
In 2003, the number of homebuilts produced in the USA exceeded the number produced by any single certified manufacturer, the history of amateur-built aircraft can be traced to the beginning of aviation. Even if the Wright brothers, Clément Ader, and their successors had commercial objectives in mind, Aviation took a leap forward with the industrialization that accompanied World War I. In the post-war period, manufacturers needed to find new markets, these machines were affordable only by the very rich. Many of these were prototypes, but designs such as Bernard Pietenpols first 1923 design were some of the first homebuilt aircraft, in 1928, Henri Mignet published plans for his HM-8 Pou-du-Ciel, as did Pietenpol for his Air Camper. Pietenpol constructed a factory, and in 1933 began creating and selling partially constructed aircraft kits, in 1936, an association of amateur aviation enthusiasts was created in France. Many types of aircraft began to make an appearance. The articles gained worldwide acclaim and the concept of aircraft homebuilding took off, until the late 1950s, builders had mainly kept to wood-and-cloth and steel tube-and-cloth design
Vertical stabilizer
It is analogous to a skeg on boats and ships. On aircraft, vertical stabilizers generally point upwards and these are known as the vertical tail, and are part of an aircrafts empennage. If the vertical stabilizer was mounted on the underside, it would produce a positive feedback whenever the aircraft dove or banked, the trailing end of the stabilizer is typically movable, and called the rudder, this allows the aircraft pilot to control yaw. Often navigational radio or airband transceiver antennas are placed on or inside the vertical tail, in all known trijets, the vertical stabilizer houses the central engine or engine inlet duct. Vertical stabilizers, or fins, have used in automobiles, specifically in top level motor sports. A few aircraft models have a fin under the rear end. Normally this is small, or can fold sideways, to allow landing, the vertical stabilizer is mounted exactly vertically, and the horizontal stabilizer is directly mounted to the empennage. This is the most common vertical stabilizer configuration, a T-tail has the horizontal stabilizer mounted at the top of the vertical stabilizer.
It is commonly seen on aircraft, such as the Bombardier CRJ200, the Fokker 70, the Boeing 727, the Vickers VC10 and Douglas DC-9. T-tails are often incorporated on configurations with fuselage mounted engines to keep the horizontal stabilizer away from the engine exhaust plume, T-tail aircraft are more susceptible to pitch-up at high angles of attack. This pitch-up results from a reduction in the horizontal stabilizers lifting capability as it passes through the wake of the wing at moderate angles of attack and this can result in a deep stall condition. T-tails present structural challenges since loads on the stabilizer must be transmitted through the vertical tail. The cruciform tail is arranged like a cross, the most common configuration having the horizontal stabilizer intersecting the vertical tail somewhere near the middle, the PBY Catalina uses this configuration. Falconjets from Dassault always have cruciform tail, rather than a single vertical stabilizer, a twin tail has two. These are vertically arranged, and intersect or are mounted to the ends of the horizontal stabilizer, the Beechcraft Model 18 and many modern military aircraft such as the American F-14, F-15, and F/A-18 use this configuration. A variation on the tail, it has three vertical stabilizers.
An example of configuration is the Lockheed Constellation. On the Constellation it was done to give the maximum vertical stabilizer area while keeping the overall height low enough so that it could fit into maintenance hangars
Biplane
A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, while a biplane wing structure has a structural advantage over a monoplane, it produces more drag than a similar unbraced or cantilever monoplane wing. Improved structural techniques, better materials and the quest for greater speed made the biplane configuration obsolete for most purposes by the late 1930s. Biplanes offer several advantages over conventional cantilever monoplane designs, they permit lighter wing structures, low wing loading, interference between the airflow over each wing increases drag substantially, and biplanes generally need extensive bracing, which causes additional drag. Biplanes are distinguished from tandem wing arrangements, where the wings are placed forward and aft, instead of above, the term is occasionally used in biology, to describe the wings of some flying animals. In a biplane aircraft, two wings are placed one above the other, either or both of the main wings can support ailerons, while flaps are more usually positioned on the lower wing.
Bracing is nearly always added between the upper and lower wings, in the form of wires and/or slender interplane struts positioned symmetrically on either side of the fuselage. The primary advantage of the biplane over the traditional single plane or monoplane is to combine great stiffness with light weight. A braced monoplane wing must support itself fully, while the two wings of a help to stiffen each other. The biplane is therefore inherently stiffer than the monoplane, the structural forces in the spars of a biplane wing tend to be lower, so the wing can use less material to obtain the same overall strength and is therefore much lighter. A disadvantage of the biplane was the need for extra struts to space the wings apart, the low power supplied by the engines available in the first years of aviation meant that aeroplanes could only fly slowly. This required an even lower stalling speed, which in turn required a low wing loading, combining both large wing area with light weight. A biplane wing of a span and chord has twice the area of a monoplane the same size and so can fly more slowly.
Alternatively, a wing of the same area as a monoplane has lower span and chord, reducing the structural forces. Biplanes suffer aerodynamic interference between the two planes and this means that a biplane does not in practice obtain twice the lift of the similarly-sized monoplane. The farther apart the wings are spaced the less the interference, given the slow speed and low power of early aircraft, the drag penalty of the wires and struts and the mutual interference of airflows were relatively minor and acceptable factors. The smaller biplane wing allows greater maneuverability, during World War One, this further enhanced the dominance of the biplane and, despite the need for speed, military aircraft were among the last to abandon the biplane form. Specialist sports Aerobatic biplanes are still occasionally made, biplanes were originally designed with the wings positioned directly one above the other
Airliner
An airliner is a type of aircraft for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines, although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an aircraft intended for carrying multiple passengers or cargo in commercial service. The largest airliners are wide-body jets and these aircraft are frequently called twin-aisle aircraft because they generally have two separate aisles running from the front to the back of the passenger cabin. These aircraft are used for long-haul flights between airline hubs and major cities with many passengers. A smaller, more class of airliners is the narrow-body or single aisle aircraft. These smaller airliners are used for short to medium-distance flights with fewer passengers than their wide-body counterparts. Regional airliners typically seat fewer than 100 passengers and may be powered by turbofans or turboprops and these airliners are the non-mainline counterparts to the larger aircraft operated by the major carriers, legacy carriers, and flag carriers and are used to feed traffic into the large airline hubs.
These regional routes form the spokes of an air transport model. The Beechcraft 1900, for example, has only 19 seats, when the Wright brothers made the world’s first sustained heavier-than-air flight, they laid the foundation for what would become a major transport industry. Their flight in 1903 was just 11 years before what is defined as the world’s first airliner. These airliners would have a significant impact on society, economics. If an airliner is defined as an aircraft intended for carrying passengers in commercial service. The Ilya Muromets was an aircraft with a separate passenger saloon, wicker chairs, lounge. The aircraft had heating and electrical lighting, the Ilya Muromets first flew on December 10,1913. On February 25,1914, it took off for its first demonstration flight with 16 passengers aboard, from June 21 – June 23, it made a round-trip from Saint Petersburg to Kiev in 14 hours and 38 minutes with one intermediate landing. However, it was never used as a commercial airliner due to the onset of World War I, in 1915 the very first airliner was used by Elliot Air Service.
The aircraft was a Curtiss JN4, a biplane which was used mainly in World War I as a trainer. Later, it was used as a tour and familiarization flight aircraft in the early 1920s
Moment of inertia
It depends on the bodys mass distribution and the axis chosen, with larger moments requiring more torque to change the bodys rotation. It is a property, the moment of inertia of a composite system is the sum of the moments of inertia of its component subsystems. One of its definitions is the moment of mass with respect to distance from an axis r, I = ∫ Q r 2 d m. For bodies constrained to rotate in a plane, it is sufficient to consider their moment of inertia about a perpendicular to the plane. When a body is rotating, or free to rotate, around an axis, the amount of torque needed to cause any given angular acceleration is proportional to the moment of inertia of the body. Moment of inertia may be expressed in units of kilogram metre squared in SI units, moment of inertia plays the role in rotational kinetics that mass plays in linear kinetics - both characterize the resistance of a body to changes in its motion. The moment of inertia depends on how mass is distributed around an axis of rotation, for a point-like mass, the moment of inertia about some axis is given by mr2, where r is the distance to the axis, and m is the mass.
For an extended body, the moment of inertia is just the sum of all the pieces of mass multiplied by the square of their distances from the axis in question. For an extended body of a shape and uniform density. In 1673 Christiaan Huygens introduced this parameter in his study of the oscillation of a body hanging from a pivot, the term moment of inertia was introduced by Leonhard Euler in his book Theoria motus corporum solidorum seu rigidorum in 1765, and it is incorporated into Eulers second law. Comparison of this frequency to that of a simple pendulum consisting of a single point of mass provides a mathematical formulation for moment of inertia of an extended body. Moment of inertia appears in momentum, kinetic energy, and in Newtons laws of motion for a rigid body as a physical parameter that combines its shape. There is a difference in the way moment of inertia appears in planar. The moment of inertia of a flywheel is used in a machine to resist variations in applied torque to smooth its rotational output.
Moment of inertia I is defined as the ratio of the angular momentum L of a system to its angular velocity ω around a principal axis, if the angular momentum of a system is constant, as the moment of inertia gets smaller, the angular velocity must increase. This occurs when spinning figure skaters pull in their arms or divers curl their bodies into a tuck position during a dive. For a simple pendulum, this yields a formula for the moment of inertia I in terms of the mass m of the pendulum and its distance r from the pivot point as. Thus, moment of inertia depends on both the mass m of a body and its geometry, or shape, as defined by the distance r to the axis of rotation
Bede BD-5
In total, only a few hundred BD-5 kits were completed, although many of these are still being flown today. The BD-5J version holds the record for the worlds lightest single-engine jet aircraft, development of the Micro dates back as early as 1967, when Jim Bede was inspired by the Schleicher ASW15. Along with his designer, Paul Griffin, they make preliminary designs of what would become the BD-5. At the time, Bede was working on the Bede BD-4, serious work on the Micro started in 1970, with construction of the prototype starting in earnest late that year. While the BD-4 was fairly conventional looking, the Micro was a radical design, behind the cockpit was a compartment housing a two-cylinder air-cooled 40 hp piston engine driving a pusher propeller. For improved performance the aircraft featured both a V-tail and retractable landing gear in order to reduce drag, calculated drag was so low that split flaps and spoilers were added to the wing in order to improve deceleration for landing. This was apparently the first application of spoilers on a light aircraft, with the shorter A wing,14 ft 3 in, it would be fully aerobatic and have a slightly higher top speed.
Builders could optionally buy both wings, switching them in about 10 minutes, in addition to being easy to fly, the BD-5 was intended to be easy to build and own. The fuselage was constructed primarily from fiberglass panels over an aluminum frame, although the early designs required some welding in the landing gear area, it was planned that this would be removed in the kit versions, so construction would require no special tooling or skills. Bede published a booklet about the BD-5 in November 1970. Several very positive magazine articles appeared at this point, the October 1971 issue of Science & Mechanics had the BD-5 on the cover, listing the price as $1,950. The associated article showed the construction of the prototype, with numerous claims about how easy it was to construct. The August 1973 issue of Popular Science covered the aircraft, the miniature fighter generated intense demand. On February 24,1971, the first $200 deposit to reserve a place in line to receive a kit was accepted, by August 1971,800 deposits had been taken, even though the first BD-5 prototype had yet to complete high-speed taxi tests.
By the end of the year, the company had taken over 4,300 orders, the prototype, N500BD, flew briefly on September 12,1971, powered by a 36 hp Polaris Industries snowmobile engine. This was sixteen months after deposits had been taken, which led to some griping in the press, the stability of the aircraft with the original V-tail was marginal at best, and clearly needed a redesign. These could be modified with relative ease during the testing cycle and it made economic sense as the orders rolled in, as assembly line production of stamped metal parts is expensive to set up but less expensive in the long run. By December 1971, the tooling for the new fuselage was in development, the aircraft now featured a longer, more pointed nose, whereas the N500BD had been patterned on the ASW15 and had a more rounded, egg-like shaping at the front
Fatigue (material)
In materials science, fatigue is the weakening of a material caused by repeatedly applied loads. It is the progressive and localized damage that occurs when a material is subjected to cyclic loading. The nominal maximum stress values that cause such damage may be less than the strength of the material typically quoted as the ultimate tensile stress limit. Fatigue occurs when a material is subjected to repeated loading and unloading, if the loads are above a certain threshold, microscopic cracks will begin to form at the stress concentrators such as the surface, persistent slip bands, and grain interfaces. Eventually a crack will reach a size, the crack will propagate suddenly. The shape of the structure will affect the fatigue life. Round holes and smooth transitions or fillets will therefore increase the strength of the structure. ASTM defines fatigue life, Nf, as the number of cycles of a specified character that a specimen sustains before failure of a specified nature occurs. Engineers have used any of three methods to determine the life of a material, the stress-life method, the strain-life method.
One method to predict fatigue life of materials is the Uniform Material Law, UML was developed for fatigue life prediction of aluminium and titanium alloys by the end of 20th century and extended to high-strength steels, and cast iron. Macroscopic and microscopic discontinuities as well as component design features which cause stress concentrations are common locations at which the process begins. Fatigue is a process that has a degree of randomness, often showing considerable scatter even in seemingly identical sample in well controlled environments, Fatigue is usually associated with tensile stresses but fatigue cracks have been reported due to compressive loads. The greater the applied stress range, the shorter the life, Fatigue life scatter tends to increase for longer fatigue lives. Materials do not recover when rested, some materials exhibit a theoretical fatigue limit below which continued loading does not lead to fatigue failure. High cycle fatigue strength can be described by stress-based parameters, a load-controlled servo-hydraulic test rig is commonly used in these tests, with frequencies of around 20–50 Hz.
Other sorts of machines—like resonant magnetic machines—can be used, to achieve frequencies up to 250 Hz, low cycle fatigue is associated with localized plastic behavior in metals, thus, a strain-based parameter should be used for fatigue life prediction in metals. Testing is conducted with constant strain amplitudes typically at 0. 01–5 Hz,1837, Wilhelm Albert publishes the first article on fatigue. He devised a test machine for conveyor chains used in the Clausthal mines,1839, Jean-Victor Poncelet describes metals as being tired in his lectures at the military school at Metz
Fuel tank
A fuel tank is a safe container for flammable fluids. Though any storage tank for fuel may be so called, the term is applied to part of an engine system in which the fuel is stored and propelled or released into an engine. Fuel tanks range in size and complexity from the plastic tank of a butane lighter to the multi-chambered cryogenic Space Shuttle external tank. Typically, a fuel tank must allow or provide the following, Storage of fuel, the fuel tank must be filled in a secure way, without sparks. Provide a method for determining level of fuel in tank, anticipate potentials for damage and provide safe survival potential. Considering the inertia and kinetic energy of fuel in a tank being transported by a vehicle. The flammability of fuel makes stress cracking a possible cause of catastrophic failure, emergencies aside, HDPE plastic is suitable for short term storage of diesel and gasoline. Underwriters Laboratories approved tanks would be a design consideration. While most tanks are manufactured, some fuel tanks are still fabricated by craftsmen or hand-made in the case of bladder-style tanks.
These include custom and restoration tanks for automotive, motorcycles, construction of fuel tanks follows a series of specific steps. The craftsman generally creates a mockup to determine the size and shape of the tank. Next, design issues that affect the structure of the tank are addressed - such as where the outlet, fluid level indicator, the craftsmen must determine the thickness and alloy of the sheet he will use to make the tank. After the sheet is cut to the shapes needed, various pieces are bent to create the basic shell and/or ends, many fuel tanks baffles contain lightening holes. These flanged holes serve two purposes, they reduce the weight of the tank while adding strength to the baffles, toward the end of construction, openings are added for the filler neck, fuel pickup and fuel-level sending unit. Sometimes these holes are created on the shell, other times they are added at the end of the fabrication process. Baffles and ends can be riveted into place, the heads of the rivets are frequently brazed or soldered to prevent tank leaks.
Ends can be hemmed in and soldered, or flanged and brazed or the ends can be flanged, once the soldering, brazing or welding is complete, the fuel tank is leak-tested. The maximum distance a combustion-engine powered car with a tank can cover is the product of the tank capacity
Scaled Composites
Scaled Composites is an American aerospace company founded by Burt Rutan and currently owned by Northrop Grumman that is located at the Mojave Spaceport, California, United States. It is known for designs, for its use of non-metal, composite materials. Scaled Composites was established in 1982 and purchased by the Beech Aircraft Corporation in 1985, in 1988, Beechs parent company, sold Scaled back to Rutan, who sold it to Wyman-Gordon. After Wyman-Gordon was acquired by Precision Castparts Corp and ten investors re-acquired the company as Scaled Composites, LLC. Northrop Grumman, a shareholder in the company with a 40% stake. Both companies said Northrop Grummans acquisition would not affect Scaled Composites strategy or involve replacing Burt Rutan as senior manager, the acquisition by Northrop Grumman was completed on August 24,2007. Before forming Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan had designed several aircraft for amateur builders, including the VariEze and he designed the Beechcraft Starship, which was, however, a commercial failure.
These aircraft were distinctive because of their configuration, winglets. Before SpaceShipOne, Rutan was best known for his Voyager aircraft, which his brother, Dick Rutan, the company announced in April 2003 that it was working on a privately funded spacecraft, in an attempt to win the Ansari X PRIZE for the first private, manned spaceflight. This experimental rocket-powered spacecraft was given the name SpaceShipOne, on December 17,2003, they announced SpaceShipOnes first supersonic flight, the first flight of its kind by a privately funded aircraft. SpaceShipOne successfully made this flight, reaching 68,000 feet and 930 mph, the craft was taken aloft by the White Knight carrier aircraft. On the same day, Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft, on April 1,2004, the U. S. Department of Transportation issued the company what it called the worlds first license for a sub-orbital manned rocket flight. The Mojave Airport, operating part-time as Mojave Spaceport, is the point for SpaceShipOne.
SpaceShipOne performed the first privately funded human spaceflight on June 21,2004, Flight 16P on September 29,2004 and Flight 17P on October 4,2004 won the X-Prize for Scaled Composites and SpaceShipOne. Scaled Composites Model 351, is being built for Stratolaunch Systems to provide a platform from which air-launch space missions can be staged, with a wingspan of 117 m, the design has the longest wingspan of any airplane to date. Each of the twin fuselages of the aircraft is 238 feet long and will be supported by 12 main landing gear wheels and it will require 12,000 feet of runway to lift-off. This model which utilized a slightly longer fuselage, larger span, the Rutan Aircraft Factory sold over 600 plan sets for the VariViggen to homebuilders, and eventually about 20 of the aircraft were built. Following the crash of one in New Brunswick, Canada in September 2006 due to wing tank fuel contamination, the prototype aircraft, N27VV, was donated to the EAA AirVenture Museum in 1988
