Another very enjoyable project at the school is the creation, from drawings, of a metal and composite ‘wing’ structure. We call it a wing, but the reality is it more closely resembles a very small flap or aileron as the final assembly has no airfoil shape to it at all. I would have liked to have made mine with an actual airfoil, but we had to follow the drawings and I suppose this makes it easier for people to finish.

The main assembly consisted of 3 identical wing ribs with lightening holes, 3 leading edge D Nose sections, and 3 attachment brackets. Along with those, an 18” wing spar, leading edge skin, upper and lower main skins, and an interior support for a clear plastic lens. All structural material is 2024-T3 aluminum of various thicknesses from 0.020” to 0.040”. Tools used to create the parts included shears, a box and pan brake, hole punch, punch and dies, as well as various hand tools.

Along with the all aluminum main structure, a composite ‘wingtip’ is also created. The process includes using a set of down-scaled drawings to create a full sized station plan, turn those stations into a foam plug, build a mold, and create a fiberglass wingtip from that mold using all the processes and techniques you would find in the real world. The process is very much the same as the process I’ve used in the past to make fiberglass hulls for RC boats starting with just drawings. So I was able to hit the ground running on that portion of the project.

Click on the images below for more details.