Correction, it's the Blogs button that doesn't work.

    Excellent post Matt, however, I do have to point out one glaring piece of fake news in it.  Glen’s name is spelled Glen, not Glenn.  Fake news, fake…

    It has now been several days since we broke the wing so we all have had time to reflect on what is next.  First off, it was really fun, not the fun like you have a Cedar Point but more like being tickled between the ears.  It was extreme brain fun that only takes place a few times a year on the face of the planet Earth. 

    The failure demonstrated the success of the design.  Spars are child’s play, there is plenty of data on designing and building them, has been for hundreds of years.  The questions I had were how strong were the ribs and the leading edge.  To say that I am pleased with their performance is an accurate statement.  These are the two elements of the design that are the most radical which is not to say that they are groundbreaking or innovative but rather they have never been used in conjunction as they are on this wing, at least as far as I know.

    This structure concentrates loads in the auxiliary spar, the smaller spar to the rear of the rib, that are not present in “conventional,” wing designs to the magnitude they are on this one.  In spite of this this design presents advantages that cannot be ignored so all we have to do is get the spars right because we know the rest of the stuff works.

    The good news is that we have very high tech equipment available to us to test our next aux spar design.  The Dude tested the ribs in this machine a few years ago and it proved the ribs would work.  He wrote about it in the Flaire forum and posted a video of the test being performed.  He is going to use this same machine to test coupons of of the next design.  The feedback this will give us is invaluable.

    So whats the next step?  We have to draw the airplane in Solid Works, a program I will have to learn. and I dread learning it.  We need to do this because the design is etched in stone now and we will use it to standardize the drawings for our first final design.  That is to say that there will  no doubt be changes that require subsequent  final designs.

    Once the drawings are underway will will then be able to send files to machine shops to make some of the parts for us.  We also need to finish up the tooling we designed to build the wing.  This will allow us to make the parts to assemble two wings.  When assembled we will test one of them to the design limit, not to destruction, and if it makes it we will cover it and put both of them on the airplane so we can start the test flying part of the project.

    I would like to remind everyone that this is a chapter group project and you are welcome to join in if you like.  Talk to Matt Curcio, he is the project manager.  Be advised that it takes a lot of initiative to actually get involved with this.  It is not a social event, although we have a ton of fun.  If you don’t know how to do all of this stuff we will teach you but it will take some time to become useful to the project.  I tell you this not to discourage you but, to advise you.  What would really help is to have somebody organize the operation, help keep the place clean etc.

M  boy