Fri Jul 25, 2014 11:00 pm
#1301481
For a lot of aeroplanes, a full set of design drawings may never have existed - the manufacturing jigs in effect fulfilled that function. In any case, a lot of the materials in use wouldn't exist any more (anybody know a current supplier for Duralumin? Whale oil lubricants? many woods that were in use 40+ years ago may well now be endangered and unavailable.)
My approach would be to negotiate access to a known good aeroplane, measure it up, scale the external shape, then design new internal structure using suitable modern materials, sized as required for the stresses I want it to be able to take, which may well be different to the original anyhow. External plans for the known good aeroplane would make that a lot easier, and those at-least should exist. Modern materials may make it possible to design a much simpler internal structure than existed previously - again, 40+ years ago labour was cheap and materials were expensive, but now it's the other way around, which flavours how you'd want to design something.
G
I am Spartacus, and so is my co-pilot.