When @sammosk posted about a creative competition and invited the PAL community to participate, I kind of flip-flopped on what to enter. I decided against something fiber-y and instead went with something else. I made this a little while back and it marked a turning point in my life, therefore, has some meaning. Building this wing led me to finding that I have quite the knack for composite fabrication, and years later, a job building some small lightsport aircraft.
Look at me, getting all sentimental 'n' shit.
While attending school for aircraft maintenance, one of the course requirements is that you have to build a proper wing segment. I looked around at my classmates and saw a lot of plain Jane looking wings. I then realized I needed to make something with a little more panache for my own sanity.
The wing's core is comprised of foam, with layering of fiberglass strands, and some run of the mill fiberglass sheeting adhered with epoxy. The outside coating consists of a simple slurry of epoxy and microballoons. Microballoons are basically little fiberglass beads that are extremely lightweight and fine, they are excellent for a lot of applications and for making things incredibly strong.
This wing segment is strong enough to be run over by a truck and hold its shape and structural integrity.
Did I run it over with a truck to find this out?
You bet your ass I did.
Sadly, I do not have footage of that test.
As for the project, it took a while, a couple weeks of work on and off. I was having to do this in a open hangar in the dead of Florida summer with about 100 other people sharing materials. That was hell. It smelled like man balls and entry level jobs in there.
Here are some shots of the process from my old potato camera for those interested!
Foam set up on the form. It was cut with a hot wire. (Also probably a very bad idea, considering it puts off toxic fumes when heated, but that is how the school does it)
All cut out and ready to rock.
Applying the fiberglass strands to fill.
The sheeting being laid on to the the epoxy glaze and then layered with more to fill and adhere
While we wait for the wing to cure between layers we had a lot of time to kill.
Like... a lot of time to kill.
FINALLY, it was time to slurry the project. It... it is so beautiful.
And when your buddy fucks his up, make the best of it.
I had to rush on the decals a bit because I was running out of time and still had three entire 8 hour days of hand sanding to do to get it smooth enough before I painted it. This is indicated by some lopsidedness.
Base coat.
At this point, teachers asked what kind of wing I was doing and what my "N Number" was going to be. I told them BSG-75.
"You can't do that, it has to be an N number."
Deduct it from the fraks I give.
Applying the tape and hodge podge paneling. If I had a dollar for every time I muttered swears and tried to shake tape off my hands, I would be a rich lady.
I wanted it to look like this thing had been to war, so I made the paint less than consistent. Hell, flight crew doesn't have time to touch up the paint job when they are constantly jumping from Cylons.
Not bad for a hand drawn emblem.
And finally, adding the tiny details and sanding on battle scars.
Thanks for looking! And...
SO SAY WE ALL.
Aircraft maintenance school?! Frakkin awesome skills.
Thank you so much!
And that school was a really awesome time in my life. The education definitely could have been better, but the experience was pretty great!
I feel like that's a true statement about a lot of schools...
This post has been chosen to feature in today's Muxxybot curation post....*....I like it! #allthingflying
Good job. That was a fun post. Sucks they wanted an N number. But thanks for the post educational and cool to see. :)
Ｓｏ Ｓａｙ Ｗｅ Ａｌｌ ぼまラム