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RAF Fighter Flies On Printed Parts
Rambo Tribble writes "In what is being touted as a milestone, Royal Air Force Tornado GR4 fighter jets have flown with 3-D printed parts. The announcement came from defense company BAE Systems, and it depicts the program as a model for cost-saving. From the article: 'The parts include protective covers for cockpit radios and guards for power take-off shafts. It is hoped the technology could cut the RAF's maintenance and service bill by over £1.2m over the next four years.'"
... but we're only free from the contractors if we specify that we need the CAD files for the individual components as part of the initial production contract.
On demand part printing is very cool, but it's kind of a yawn until they fly an entirely 3D printed plane.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
But those are some expensive radio covers.
Fiat Lux.
Get a guaranteed article about it on Wired or some tech site.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
"It is hoped the technology could cut the RAF's maintenance and service bill by over £1.2m over the next four years."
Yeah it's always hoped that it will save money, yet somehow government contracting just gets more and more expensive every year.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Without automation, the average car would cost more than a million dollars, just getting the people in who can repeatedly file a part down to the tolerances needed. That new iPhone would cost thousands, if not able to be made at all (good luck soldering the BGA chips.)
Automation is a fact of life, and jobs change. When I was a teenager, I loved the job of running around with a hard disk for reimaging machines... but that has been replaced by PXE booting. Life goes on.
The more automation the better. It benefits us all, other than the people with the dead-end work.
Sorry but this is simply moronic, these are cheapest possible parts in the airplane - plastic covers for stuff. It doesnt make much of a price difference if you make 100 or 200 of such plastic parts, its the first one that costs you. Once you have made all that were needed for a batch of machines (aircraft in this case) that were actually ordered, you make a little more and store them for spare parts. The main cost here is spare parts storage - something you need to have anyway. Replacting some storage space with a very expencive 3D printer (you really thought they want to use a 300$ one? think again) makes no sense, you get lower quality parts and making them takes longer than it would take for you to get the parts from storage.
When you get to printing turbine blades - then you are talking business, but for plastic parts.. makes no sense.
PS: obvious piece of wisdom - if a man can be replaced by a machine - the man is not worth his paycheck
Heh. I expect within hours to see a bill in the U.S. Senate banning the 3-D printing of fighter planes. Someone might sneak those things through metal detectors, though he might have to do it one piece at a time. Of course, 3-D printing a fighter plane (rather than just replacement parts for the console) is impractical and printing one that would actually work as a fighter plane is impossible, but the likelihood of someone doing so has never really been the issue.
If the above statement seems a little exaggerated, I'll confess that it is. But it's no more exaggerated than giving this article the title "RAF Fighter Flies On Printed Parts", when we're just talking about console parts. The original title was, "RAF jets fly with 3D printed parts." I am saddened that the /. version is both less accurate and more sensationalist.
I heard someone refer to a Lathe as a 3D printer... and my dentist proudly told me that he got a 3D printer for teeth, then showed me his CNC milling machine.
I am just waiting for the swiss army knife "3D printer" pocket knife that allows you to "manually 3D print with Cellulose media"
What makes it significant is not anything in particular about the parts, but the fact they can save over 1 million pounds in the next few years with it. Imagine some airfield in an isolated location... a little plastic cap that would cost 4 cents to mass-produce on an assembly line probably costs ten-thousand times that by the time it goes onto a plane, because it is made in small quantities, procured through some byzantine contracting process, and then shipped around the globe through military logistics.
3D printing has been used for complex parts in aircraft for years. Specifically, some turbine blades have been 3D printed in metal, because they can have internal passages for cooling. It's not quite a net part - the airfoil shape and the retaining dovetail need to be post-machined, but it's a lot faster than the investment casting it replaced.
"3d printers" can be additive- the ubiquitous stratasys or similar, or subtractive (Roland MDX or your dentists new toy). Point is that they are driven like a printer, rather than with cnc programming approaches, do can be used by people who aren't machinists.
Although I have nothing against the swiss army knife as a manual subtractive 3d-printer for cellulosic media, this kind of 3d printing really doesn't work for situations where you need thin and flexible output. For that I've been looking into a new DIY additive 3d-printing device that is quite promising. The preliminary results are durable enough that they even stand up to extended daily usage in the wearable-technology vertical.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I wonder if it is because sprues are easier to understand than proper tool paths.
I'm curious which one makes less waste overall. On one hand, the aluminum from a mill can be binned and recycled, while depending on the 3D printer, there is likely less waste, although what waste there is isn't as easily recycled.
She still has a sceptre, but the magic has been lost and it now has no effect.
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That was true in the past but an increasing number of researchers are suggesting it won't be in the future - . I actually welcome the day when machines can take care of all of the necessities (and a lot of the rest). The way we organise the economy will have to change though, and we can expect complete carnage while people get used to that...
It depends a bit on what you consider 'automation' - does a electric screwdriver count as automation? A belt sander? Something is moving without human power, after all. I'll settle for allowing power tools, but everything would have to be guided by a human. IE you can have a drill press with mechanical stops, but a human will actually have to work a wheel/lever to control drill height.
So to look at the examples, the GP was talking about an entire car, not just the engine, plus your engine is 'hand finished', not 'hand made'. My take on it is that most of the parts were still made in the automatic ways, only the final assembly/fitting was done by hand. Consider your exhaust pipe example - while I'm sure they bent the pipe by hand, I'm just as sure that the pipes were made using automated equipment, as was any fittings such as hose clamps, screws, and bolts. In addition for the car you'd also have to craft the wheels, frame, seats, dash, etc...
The reason hand made/custom parts can be cheaper than going to the dealer is that the part might be in a part of it's life cycle where even the part the dealer would get was hand made as well.
I don't read AC A human right