Hi,

I'm thinking of recording my process of building up a solid model of an aircraft. Due to the sweet scale documents I have, i'm going to deviate a bit from the way that for example Dean (roscoedude) has done in his awesome SW tutorials. That process can be mimicked pretty closely in Inventor too so I'll try and talk about that also on the way and point out the differences. No guarantee though

Here are few pics to get started. Due to school and family stuff, this will be fairly slow process but we'll get there.

Later
raipe

Hi,

Here's a another update. I'll use an alternate method here compared to the easier way I mentioned earlier. That would be few sketches and guide curves/rails to get the shape right. The Buffalo fuse is a little tricky when it comes to shape so this is what I'll try. I'll use a boat load of sketches to loft the fuselage. I got the factory drawing to show the cross sections so I'll use as many as possible to get the shape right. A masochist, I know More info in the descriptions of the pics.

Awesome! Good start buddy.
Man you are going all out, 20 sketches for the fuse, you got more patience than I do.

Keep it coming!

Later,
Dean

Thanks buddy

Patience!?! I think it's some kind of fixation...

I do have a fear that the fuse will be all lumpy due to the lofting but have to try anyway. I'll try to make it smooth by dividing every sketch into same amount curves and placing the points where the curves meet at the same places in every sketch. I've seen some funky lofts created by Inventor if the sketches are all random... Hope I can escape that this time

I'll explain how I'm tackling the issue when I get more done next week.

Later
raipe

Subbed in!

Dean's and Longhorne's threads covering their CAD workflows are a great learning tool, and it's great to see different people's workflows, and well as how each person tackles certain issues.

I know exactly what you mean about lumpy lofts. The way you describe your solution seems very similar to how I dealt with that issue with my OV-10 bronco model. What I tried to do, was create lofts such that the seams lined up with the panel lines on the plane.

Welcome aboard DDee! I agree, I've learned alot from Dean and Paul. Now I thought I'll give back to the community and maybe someone with access to Inventor might catch the bug... Good idea to try and simulate the panel lines at the same time. Might be too hard on the Buff though.

Of course, I have a hidden agenda too. Maybe someone lurking might see me doing things that could be done easier and set me straight. That too will benefit others too, I think.

I've been thinking and I'll derail at some point, after I manage to loft the fuse, to show the Inventor equivalent to Deans "easier" way to produce the fuse loft too. That'll point out the differences in the programs nicely.

Later
raipe

Just wanted to post an update to show I didn't give up yet I managed to sneek a CAD session into my hectic study schedule... It's not much but still progress.

later
raipe

ps. take a closer look at the spider! One of the guides is positioned (more or less) on the canopy rail. Why? I'll show later!

Cool, I was going to bump this but you beat me to it.

Yeah that looks like a good way to keep those sketches lined up. I think you still might have some waves in the fuse loft using all those sketches, but hey, you never know until you try it.
If you do just use less sketches, that should help.

Later,
Dean

Hi Dean!

You're right of course. The plan B is to drop every other sketch if nothing else helps. And I'm afraid you might be right about the waves too. But we'll see when we get there

raipe

Will your lofts be driven by any guide curves, or just cross section only? One thing I found very helpful with my modeling is to have side and top profile sketches act as parents to the cross section sketches. The cross sections then have a common reference to have vertexes snap/coincident to. This also helps to make sure the surface tangent to that plane has a smooth transition between all sketches.

One thing you can also test with your lofts, and might work best where the canopy begins to have a straight taper to the tail: Make a loft between 2 guide curves using sketches far apart. Then compare the surface cross section to the intermediate sketches you did not use as part of the loft command. You can then test this with different sketches, spacing to find a nice balance of shape and sketch count.

Hi DDee!

Thanks for the tips. No guide curves here, at least for the start. Normally I would use them and less sketches. But I can't help but try and use the factory cross sections. The buffalo has a little funky shape to it and I could only draw in guides on the top and bottom easily. I'll show it later but it's not as easy to constraint between sketches in inventor as it is in solidworks. There is however a possibility in inventor to adjust the transitions point by point between sketches (will show this too later). That will usually help smooth things out. Not always though and we have guite a few odd's against us... But well see. I have to admit that I used to loft with no guide rails alot before I learned how to do the "intersketch" constraints with inventor.

Good idea to try out different combinations of sketches to achieve the wanted shape. I think I know a place in the project to try that out. I'm going with a single loft from back of the cowl to the tail post to achieve better transition (hopefully) and loft the section behind the cockpit afterwards. This worked ok on my first revision so I have high hopes with this one too.

Later
raipe

Just wanted to peak in to say I'm still on it...

Like I wrote CAD time is really thin here now but I'm fiddling a bit here and there. Here's a pic of a trial loft with the whole 7 !?! cross sectional sketches i've managed to draw up. I'm still really happy with the outcome but well see where it goes.

later
raipe

Looks good buddy, now only 13 or so more sketches to go. You did a really nice job on the sketches to get it that smooth, that's not an easy task, sweet.
Here's to thin time, cheers!

Later,
Dean

Hi Dean!

Thanks buddy! The plan is quite accurate it seems so keeping as close to it as possible has worked untill now. Hope my luck lasts

raipe

Ok, to have a little change to this I did a little detour to look into the EASIER way to loft a fuse. Same thing of cause work for wings etc. Trying to explain things in the image texts. Hope I can be clear enough

later
raipe