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Fold-a-Plane
After years of assisting builders with
the Vision aircraft Steve Rahm developed
an idea to adapt a method of
using flat composite panels to create a
fuselage. The technique had been used
successfully in the race car industry
for years, though from his experience no
one had adapted its use to aviation. He
wrote an article and it was published in
the December 2002 issue of
Experimenter magazine. This unique
method uses smaller individual flat
composite panels that are eventually
combined to form larger structures such
as a fuselage, turtle deck or seat.
Example of Fold-a-Plane parts
In manufacturing, individual parts are
vacuum bagged so that joggles and smooth
exterior surfaces are formed. Where the
panels are to remain flat such as a side
wall or a floor the interior side of the
panel is fiberglassed which lock in the
flat sections.
Interior sections of the panels that
will eventually have a radius are
intentionally left un-glassed. The
individual parts are shipped in UPS
acceptable or equivalent sized boxes.
The homebuilder then bonds the smaller
panels together with Bi-directional
fiberglass to create a large flat
panel. After creating a simple jig, the
larger panels are placed into the jig
and temporarily secured. The folded
panels create consistent radius corners
where the interior side had been left
un-glassed. The smaller interior
sections of the exposed core material
are then fiberglassed to lock in the
radius.
Fold-a-Plane parts have three major
advantages
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