All Plastic Airplanes

In order to develop and maximize load performances required in the aircraft structures, glass fabric reinforcement/TS polyester resin sandwich 

In addition to this all RP airplane being built and flown, their have been other planes built and flown with parts or complete structures that used RPs and URPs. Examples follow  

1934 Fibrous sheet material, such as paper, is used together with a heat-hardened phenolic condensation product and a layer of vulcanized rubber bonded to the material to minimize sound transmission. It gives desired flexibility for airplane cabin construction. Developed by H. Swan and S. Higgins USA. 

1937 In Germany, airplane builders use polyester to bond wooden subassemblies. 

1939 Germany builds ME-109 airplane wings with polyester resin developed from Ellis s patent. 

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The tests are performed under carefully controlled stress (load), temperature, time, and creep (elongation) conditions. To save time, tests for different constant loads are performed simultaneously on different specimens of the same material. Creep tests may be rather extensively conducted, as for example when developing creep data prior to the design and fabrication of the first all-plastic airplane (41). The usual procedure is to plot the creep versus time curve, but other combinations are possible. 

During 1944 at U.S. Air Force, Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, OH the first successful all plastic airplane (primary and secondary structures) was designed, fabricated, and flight tested (Fig. 4-11). It used... 

IM Technique, Soluble core molding. This process can produce high performance products. It was used in fabricating the first all-plastic airplane (Fig. 4-11). 

In the past, RP components were commonly designed with a safety fector of 5 times the ultimate strength, such as the 1944 all plastic airplane. In the meantime, significant improvements in materials of construction and quality control during processing with sophisticated design analysis via computers have been developed. Safety factors have... 

Figure 1-24. The Gossamer Albatross, a human-powered all-plastic airplane that conquered the English Channel in 1979, used Du Font s Mylar bioriented TP polyester film, Kevlar aramid fiber, Delrin acetal resin. Dacron TP polyester fiber, and nylon as key elements in its construction. This innovative use of lightweight engineered plastics used bicycle pedals to provide power to a propeller.

Figure 4.52 Example of orientation of fibers (fabrics) in the all-plastic airplane wing construction...

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