Reinhold Messner climbed Everest without oxygen. There is just more chance that people get sleepy above 10,000 feet. Indeed, I fly regularly in small unpressurised airliners at only 5000 feet, and passengers often sleep on these 45 minute flights. Messner was incredible. Even Sherpas were suffering bleeding in their eyes, but that is due to low atmospheric pressure, rather than just lack of oxygen.

Rhino is OK for CNC

Absolute gold mine of info here in this thread..Here is Rhino at it,s best..From a good friend of mine overseas..
http://spitfire3d.com/wing.html
We use primarily ProDesktop which is a students version of ProEngineer and Solidworks for our 3D work.Found IGES works best for importing/exporting between the two..
it all depends what you are doing..In some cases CAD is superior to the two as in laying out geometry for jigs,frame assemblies etc.For parts assemblies 3D is king.
With Solidworks you have the ability to use it to design sheetmetal developments and fold/unfold virtually.It doesn,t like complex splines though like we use in Aircraft frames.For that Catia is king.
Some more 3D goodness here..
http://3dspitfires.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-04-09T14%3A20%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=7

Hi Mike, and Ross…

Ross, I dropped the spitfire3d website some time ago, but may resurrect it at some point.

Mike, ‘Great to hear of, and see some of your excellent progress. I had been wondering how you were getting on.

Firebird is not completely correct when he says Rhino is similar to Max. As you know, Rhino is fine for NURBS modeling in surfaces and solids. Firebird is correct in that mesh models are useless. I think we discussed this before you purchased Rhino. Rhino NURBS models can be plotted on a properly calibrated printer at full scale. I use Catia anyway, but some customers cannot read the parts. I send them STEP or IGES files that their CNC software imports perfectly. Rhino can export STEP, IGES and a huge amount of other formats too.

On Spits we do not use paper at all. We model the frame or other pressed part. Then, taking bend allowances into account, and springback, we model a press tool (usually from alloy plate), and this is used in a rubber press. The bend radii used demand that the materials are heat treated for the correct condition.

I am on my last week of a five week summer break, and am travelling in France, but when I get back to Sweden I will email you with some photos of the tooling and CAD screenshots.

Best regards,

Justin

It’s a nice idea, but I think it looks like UK hasn’t the resolve or capability to make its own fast jets any more.

I thought I would share with you some parts that we recovered from a wreck site last year. I am no Spitfire expert so I will just post the photos for you to see. I have cleaned the parts and tried to show part numbers where shown.

Anyone any idea what these are?

These small cast aluminium pieces are spacers from inside the lower part of fuselage Frame 5. I think they set the correct gap between the stub spars for the wing spar booms to fit well.

[QUOTE=SlowMan;1989066]You meant the Northrop YF-17.

No. I meant F-16. Compare the planforms of F-5 and F-16. The YF-17 has much more influence in the F-18 design.

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2013/01/air-force-new-trainer-jet-t-x-012813w/

There really is a son-of-f-5 talk within the USAF.

I am surprised not to hear more of such talk. The N-156 airframe was a lot better than most people gave it credit for. I am pretty sure it must have given some inspiration to the F-16 designers at General Dynamics.

Surely, the F-5b or a two seat version of the F-20 must have been conisdered for T-X, and rejected for some reasons.

Is it possible that the F-117 that was shot down had an increased RCS from an undercarriage door misalignment, perhaps from a bird strike at take-off?