The big boys go for plastic

While it is true that the latest developments in advanced alloy manufacturing techniques can deliver structures and components that meet all the product requirements that aerospace primes need for new aircraft, there can be no escaping the fact that there is now an unstoppable momentum building up for the plastic airplane.

Composites have been around for many decades, but the promise of lighter and stronger structures has taken far longer to translate into significant mainstream civil aircraft production, beyond the general aviation, business jet, and defense communities.

In the May 16 issue of Aerospace Engineering, we looked at the impact of composites on how large turbofan engines are built, but in the airframe sector, the shift has been gradual, with composites first replacing metal components on a one-to-one basis for simple structures, and where large angular sections could be molded in one piece, replacing the need for large numbers of separate sheets, strengthening fillets, and rivets.