Composite Tub

I want to gage the interest of the hand crafted car community in a phenomenon that has been present in the experimental (kit) plane industry for a long time. The availability of kits manufactured using advanced composites. For the purposes of this conversation let me define advanced composites as either fiberglass, carbon, Kevlar, prepreg cured at elevated temperatures 200 degrees and higher in either an oven or autoclave. If you’re viewing this thread you are aware that the most advanced super cars of our time have been manufactured from advanced composites. These kinds of cars are not out of the reach of the motivated enthusiast.

I’ve been involved in the composite industry for the past 22 yrs. I currently am employed by GKN Aerospace where I’m a Senior Process Engineer and Integrated Production Team Lead on the HondaJet, responsible for the manufacturing of the composite fuselage of the HondaJet
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The aircraft is assembled using hole determinate assembly, basically jigless assemble using parts that cleco together at molded flanges. These parts are glues together in an oven using film adhesive.
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All those interested in discussing the possibilities are encouraged to communicate.
 
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Hi Charlie,

Welcome to the forum!

Its nice to see another person on the forum who is directly involved in aviation, that gives a good definition of an advanced composite.

I have been a certificated A&P I/A for 26 years, during this time I have always worked on cutting edge business jets & helicopters (Falcon, Gulfstream & Sikorsky exclusively) for fortune 50 corprations.

I have been around composites during these years and recently I attended a 2 week advanced composite course at Flight Safety in FLA.

I will be going to a second 2 week course later this year.

I look forward to reading your posts and I will chime in when I feel I can contribute positively.

Regards,
Scott
 
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