Design, Build Fly Club

Woodworking Laser Cutting Monokote Covering Hand Tools

Overview

AIAA Design/Build/Fly (DBF) is a national undergraduate engineering competition where teams design, build, and fly a radio-controlled aircraft to complete a mission profile set annually by AIAA, Cessna, and the U.S. Air Force. Embry-Riddle's team includes a large manufacturing subgroup responsible for building and finishing structural components for the aircraft.

What I Worked On

During my freshman year I worked on the manufacturing team, handling fabrication and finishing tasks for the competition aircraft. This included building a wooden flap assembly from laser-cut components, precision-sanding the wooden guide channels so the flap and slat rods could slide smoothly without play, cutting metal guide rods to length using a Dremel, operating the laser cutter, and applying Monokote heat-shrink covering to finished surfaces.

Gallery

Skills & Exposure Gained

Hands-on experience with lightweight aircraft construction techniques including laser cutting, balsa and plywood fabrication, and Monokote covering. Developed an understanding of fit and tolerance in mechanical assemblies through precision finishing work on control surface linkages.

Takeaways

Working on a competition team taught me how much attention to detail matters in fabrication, where small fit issues in a control surface linkage can affect flight performance. It was also my first exposure to the full cycle of designing, building, and flying an aircraft, even as a contributor to a small part of it.