The Register®

Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/17/vulture_cad/

Hey kids, wanna build your own Vulture 1?

Click here for hot plans of famous space plane

By Lester Haines

Posted in SPB, 17th November 2010 15:19 GMT

Free whitepaper – Hands on with Hyper-V 3.0 and virtual machine movement

Well, you lovely people, it's time to wrap the Paper Aircraft Released Into Space project following our astounding Vulture 1 triumph.

 [1]In case you missed it, we had a bit of a result with our beloved PARIS. No sooner had the news broken in Oz [2], than the international media were all over us like a rash.

Poor old John Oates was grilled by Sky, ITN, CNN and the BBC [3], while I dismally failed to escape the attention of Spanish telly [4].

That's not to mention the papers, including the UK Telegraph [5], Times, Metro, and Spain's El Mundo [6], and quality online sources such as Space.com [7].

The list goes on, and it's evident that the exploits of our heroic Playmonaut [8] have captured the imagination of people worldwide.

So much so, in fact, that a team of Aussies from Adelaide are threatening to launch an improved Vulture 1 (project codename KYLIE) from somewhere in central Oz, while students from the Mechanical Engineering Group, Department of Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran, have requested aircraft plans to mount their own challenge.

We've happily agreed to the Iranian petition. Lecturer Ehsan Roohi and his new Lucky Country rivals can now avail themselves of the Vulture 1 in .dwg format [9], SketchUp [10] (.skp) format, or full-scale plans [11] (.pdf), so they too can go from this...

A sample joint in the jig

...to this:

The finished Vulture 1

To view the .dwg file, you'll need AutoCAD or a free viewer such as DWG TrueView [12].

Here are a few sample grabs from the file:

CAD view of the Vulture 1 structure [13]

CAD view of the Vulture 1 structure [14]

CAD view of the Vulture 1 structure [15]

 [16]

CAD view of the Vulture 1 structure [17]

The virtual Vulture 1 with its paper skin

Once you've downloaded the .dwg file [18], you can use it to get the dimensions and other vital statistics of the Vulture 1:

Demonstration of measuring the Vulture 1

Alternatively, use a real ruler and work off the .pdf plan [19]:

Part of the Vulture 1 .pdf plan

Of course, you'll need the practical construction details, which are available in three parts: here [20], here [21] and here [22]. There a sequential set of construction photos here [23].

If you've got any doubts about how we put the beast together, we refer you to the above and other background material in our PARIS section [24]. You'll understand we can't answer individual questions, so you're on your own. Good luck. ®

Bootnote

The virtual Vulture 1 is the work of Federico Buenadicha, who was also a vital member of our pursuit team. Thanks to Lawrence Cuthbert for the SketchUp version.

Additional PARIS resources