1: Why Scan a Stunt Plane?
Friday 19th August 2011
Many of us believe that aircraft, cars and trains are developed in CAD, and the first time they see the light of day is when the first prototype is built. This is in fact rarely the case. It is much more common for a model to be crafted, showing the car, plane or ship visually.
There are many reasons - sometimes it is to fine tune the aesthetics of the design in a way which is beyond computers. Sometimes, it is to rally support from a client or investor. Sometimes it is to allow assessment of access, usability or maintainability - and sometimes it is all of these which lead to the creation of a detailed model.
Such was the case with Targett Aviation and the development of the Rebel Racer - a single-seat, all-electric stunt aircraft. This high-performance plane existed as a concept. By creating a model, they could refine the deisgn - but also lock in early customers, secure financial backing, and plan a racing series for these new hi-tech planes with airshow organisers.
The model was used in the same way as a "clay" is used in automotive - allowing iterative refinement of the look and feel of the aircraft. And when it came to simulation, that created a challenge - there was no longer any accurate CAD for the aircraft.
That's where Phase Vision came in. Scanning even a small aircraft for CFD purposes is a massive undertaking. Where most components we inspect have relatively short production cycles - often of a minute or so - for CFD we required a detailed model of a very large structure.
The rest of this white paper details how that scanning was done... in very short timescales.
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