amateur design consultant?

Jay wrote...

Get X-Plane...

...it will give you aerodynamic information that was
unavaiable to even the big boys 10 years ago...

1. Better make sure you understand what X-plane
*doesn't* tell you aerodynamically before you cut metal, and

2. Blade element theory's been around for a lot longer
than 10 years. X-Plane pulls it together in a slick
package for a household user, but people have been using it
for far longer than 10 years.

Dave 'assume a spherical cow' Hyde

Shin,

I'm pretty good with AutoCad and Excel. I live in Sterling, about 40
min. from DC if not rush hour. I would be interested helping out.
Right now I am working on a trike using a hang glider that I bought.
I also bought a Zenoah engine and a propeller from Tenn-Prop. I just
need to build the trike frame itself and put wheels on it.

Bryan "The Monk" Chaisone

(Shin Gou) wrote in message . com...
By the way, I am in Washington DC.

Shin



(Shin Gou) wrote in message . com...
Could anyone give me a suggestion of good airplane design consultant
with a reasonable service charge for light/sport airplane conceptual
design? A professional design agency would be great, but I believe a
graduate student in aeronautical engineering should be able to help me
out.

I am not an engineer and only have private pilot's paper test level
aeronautical knowledge(don't sneer at me. I passed the test in the
first try!), but I am now just fascinated with the idea of designing
and building and yes, flying my own airplane! I am brainstorming a
twin 3/4 seat camper design using two Rotax 912S or Jabiru 3300 with
reliability(twin), simplicity(tube and fabric?), ruggedness(tube and
fabric and STOL), comfortability(large cabin for two sleeping)and low
cost in mind. I know I probably wouldn't have enough money and time to
build it anytime soon, but I just can't wait for proving the design
and seeing the airplane layed out on the blue print!

So now my goal is to get to the first stage: the conceptual and
preliminary design. Then I will save money for structure design and
stability analysis etc. Finally I hope I can have the construction
plan and then from there I can build the plane piece by piece over
time.

I know nowadays such light airplane design could be totally done on a
computer and there're some dirty cheap entry-level airplane design CAD
softwares I can play with, but these softwares do need human input
with sufficient aeronautical knowledge even though they look like a
dummy's software for those enginners who operate 150K REAL airplane
design CAD systems. So is there anyone good at any of those softwares
like AirplanePDQ or even X-Plane PlaneMaker who would like to help me?

Thank you in advance.

Shin Gou

Shin,

I'm pretty good with AutoCad and Excel. I live in Sterling, VA, about
40 min. from DC if not rush hour. I would be interested helping out.
Right now I am working on a trike using a hang glider that I bought.
I also bought a Zenoah engine and a propeller from Tenn-Prop. I just
need to build the trike frame itself and put wheels on it.

Bryan "The Monk" Chaisone

(Shin Gou) wrote in message . com...
By the way, I am in Washington DC.

Shin



(Shin Gou) wrote in message . com...
Could anyone give me a suggestion of good airplane design consultant
with a reasonable service charge for light/sport airplane conceptual
design? A professional design agency would be great, but I believe a
graduate student in aeronautical engineering should be able to help me
out.

I am not an engineer and only have private pilot's paper test level
aeronautical knowledge(don't sneer at me. I passed the test in the
first try!), but I am now just fascinated with the idea of designing
and building and yes, flying my own airplane! I am brainstorming a
twin 3/4 seat camper design using two Rotax 912S or Jabiru 3300 with
reliability(twin), simplicity(tube and fabric?), ruggedness(tube and
fabric and STOL), comfortability(large cabin for two sleeping)and low
cost in mind. I know I probably wouldn't have enough money and time to
build it anytime soon, but I just can't wait for proving the design
and seeing the airplane layed out on the blue print!

So now my goal is to get to the first stage: the conceptual and
preliminary design. Then I will save money for structure design and
stability analysis etc. Finally I hope I can have the construction
plan and then from there I can build the plane piece by piece over
time.

I know nowadays such light airplane design could be totally done on a
computer and there're some dirty cheap entry-level airplane design CAD
softwares I can play with, but these softwares do need human input
with sufficient aeronautical knowledge even though they look like a
dummy's software for those enginners who operate 150K REAL airplane
design CAD systems. So is there anyone good at any of those softwares
like AirplanePDQ or even X-Plane PlaneMaker who would like to help me?

Thank you in advance.

Shin Gou

A theory and a usable implimentation are very different things. A
slick package that hasn't been available to anyone until recently
thanks to the technology development pushed by the personal computing
boom. I've been working aerospace for years and seen the calibre or
software they used 10 years ago and it sucked big time compared to
what is available for $5 to any hobbiest with an E-bay account.

.."nauga" wrote in message link.net...
Jay wrote...

Get X-Plane...

...it will give you aerodynamic information that was
unavaiable to even the big boys 10 years ago...

1. Better make sure you understand what X-plane
*doesn't* tell you aerodynamically before you cut metal, and

2. Blade element theory's been around for a lot longer
than 10 years. X-Plane pulls it together in a slick
package for a household user, but people have been using it
for far longer than 10 years.

Dave 'assume a spherical cow' Hyde

Jay wrote...

I've been working aerospace for years and seen the calibre or
software they used 10 years ago and it sucked big time compared to
what is available for $5 to any hobbiest with an E-bay account.

Done a lot of CFD then, have you? Look, I agree with what I
*think* you're trying to say, in that the tools in use in
industry then and now today aren't always as 'user friendly'
as what's available on the open market, but to say that
XPlane provides *accurate* aero data that the big guys couldn't
do equally as well 10 years ago is not only misleading, it's
flat out wrong. XPlane simply makes it available (and affordable)
on the open market, for the layman. Whether said layman is
wise to blindly accept the output of this type of software
without understanding its limitations is another matter
altogether. It's not difficult to guess which side of that
argument I'm on.

Dave 'GIGO' Hyde