Light sport aircraft 3d printing

[Sebastian Finke]

Hey, I think there is a misunderstanding. While there IS a printer doing carbon fibers (think MARK ONE), I was talking about making a mold in plastic then putting a release agent (silicon ? PTFE ?) and putting resin and carbon fiber / glass fiber on it to make the part. The (huge) advantage is that for each ply of fabric you manually put in the mold, you can choose the fiber direction thus fully optimizing strength in the desired directions.
Once the resin is cured the release agent will help you separate the part from the mold.
You can then reuse the mold to make more identical parts.

This. 3D printing cannot achieve this.

[curious aardvark]

thr guys who printed the sportscar with the BAM machine could do it.

I believe that other leisure craft apart from cars are on their todo list. small aircraft among them.

[LambdaFF]

As the OP seems interested in the ULM (ultra light motorized), the requirements from FAA or EASA are pretty much limited to :
- you have an altimeter ? Yes
- you have an engine ? Yes, and it works too !
- Then you're good to go, safe flight !

Pro : attractive low regulation environment.
Con : easy to kill yourself.

Sure, as far as ULM are concerned, anyone can do anything. I wouldn't mind trying a car, but an aircraft is something else entirely. I'd like to point out that for instance, a helo certification includes proving that the flight control system fail at over 500% the max effort necessary to control the machine in the worst configuration. Plastic is not appropriate for that. How would you feel about a broken control stick between your legs ? EDIT : ok that's not a good way to phrase it. Point is still valid though.