Top Row (left to right): Canopy mold CAD render, Garmin G3X Touch EFIS powered up, Fuselage mold cart fully assembled Bottom Row (left to right): Fit-up of canopy mold sections prior to final machining, Finished 4'x8'x1/2" panel with peel-plied finish, New fixture plate installed on CNC machine
Happy New Year!
In December we continued work on the fuselage of the DarkAero 1. The fuselage is a complicated assembly that contains several critical flight components and systems that we are working on in parallel. Progress in the past month involved work on the canopy mold, fuselage structure, landing gear, and electrical system.
Canopy We started construction of the canopy mold. The canopy mold is made from special high temperature tooling board that we had not worked with before. We began by rough cutting the stock sections of the canopy mold and then bonded them together. This will be final machined to provide the shape that the canopy acrylic will be thermoformed to.
Fuselage Structure The internal structure of the fuselage is comprised of a number of bulkheads machined from bulk 4'x8' honeycomb panels. Three bulk panels are required to make all the fuselage bulkheads, and we fabricated two of the three this month.
The fuselage sides are formed in two large molds that require support frames made from extruded t-slot aluminum. We completed assembly of these mold frames.
Electrical System We used plywood to make a mock up of the instrument panel and surrounding structure. This allowed us to begin placing electrical system components and making the wiring connections between them. We began wiring up the electrical system and instrument panel for the prototype DarkAero 1 and were able to power up the EFIS for the first time.
Landing Gear We purchased the aluminum stock to machine the nose gear components and purchased and installed a fixture plate on our CNC to allow us to machine the nose gear components.
It's been a great year of progress for us in 2018, and it's been very motivating to have the support of everyone that's followed along with us on this journey so far. We look forward to bringing you many more updates in 2019!
If you'd like to get more frequent updates on our progress and stay better connected to what we're up to, consider subscribing to our Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook accounts. We've had a great time posting daily updates and having good aircraft discussions. Links to these pages can be found below.
