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3-D Printing Enables UVA Student-Built Unmanned Plane

Posted by timothy on from the up-in-the-air-junior-birdman dept.

In an effort that took four months and $2000, instead of the quarter million dollars and two years they estimate it would have using conventional design methods, a group of University of Virginia engineering students has built and flown an airplane of parts created on a 3-D printer. The plane is 6.5 feet in wingspan, and cruises at 45 mph. I only wish this had been sponsored by Estes or Makerbot rather than the MITRE Corporation; it would be great for every high school or hobbyist group that can scrape together the printing time to have one of these on demand. (HT to Gaël Duval.)

3 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. No, they didn't print an engine by Animats · · Score: 4, Informative

    The press release is deceptive. They did not build a working turbofan engine with a 3D printer. They built a plastic scale model of a Rolls Royce turbofan engine with a Stratasys 3D printer. It will rotate if powered with compressed air. Rolls Royce gave U of VA a $2 million dollar grant which supported that effort.

    The plane itself wasn't printed as one piece. It was more like printing the parts of a plane kit. Very slowly. 80 hour weeks are mentioned. Not sure where the $2000 cost figure comes from, but it doesn't include labor or 3D printer time. Maybe that's just the plastic cost.

  2. So let me see by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    Instead of going to a hobby shop to buy a RTF (ready to fly) RC plane kit with remote for about 500$, they spent several times that amount? OK, and where did that 250K$ figure come from? Is this another one of those masturbatory 3D printing stories where a few parts were made by some rapid prototyping technology, all the other parts were bought off the shelf made the nasty old way, but we are led to believe you can 3D print the whole thing?

    And of course, there's never a follow up about how well it performs or how long it lasts.

    And now I predict a bunch of nerds that will honestly believe we are less than ten years away from Star Trek replicators.

  3. Re:The engine... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    A scale model of a turbofan was an entirely different project, unrelated to the UAV.