Helicopters: The bell Boeing tiltrotor V-22 Osprey was the first military aircraft, with the prototype built almost entirely of solid laminate composite materials making its first flight in 1989. The airframe was 25% lighter than one using metal counterparts. The aft-fuselage was built using a fully automated fabrication process with Hercules “Towpreg” applied along six axes to conform to the structure’s complex shape.
Aero engines: Many parts of C-17, MD-11 and M-90 aircraft are fabricated with cfrp. Airbus A380 and A400M have used cfrp for pylon fairing and necelles cowlings.
Propeller blades: The design has an outstanding service safety record with no blade losses over 20years and 75 million flying hours. Spars made of mainly UD carbon fiber take the main load and resist centrifugal and bending loads on the blade, extending from root to tip and reducing in thickness towards the tip as the loads are reduced. The outer shell has carbon fiber wound at ±45C to the blade axis. The structural foam core permits transference of shear stress between the two composite spar beams. The spars form via a transition into a cylinder and connect to a metal outer sleeve using a system of glass fiber wedges; with the introduction of an inner sleeve totally enclosing the annular wedge. Lightening protection is achieved by an Al braid running along both faces, from the tip to the metal outer sleeve.
Composites enable the manufacture of complicated shapes necessary to give lift control characteristics and allow complicated geometry to be made relatively easily and moreover, possess a virtually infinite fatigue life.
Antenna, lightening conductors: Antenna can be manufactured by filament winding carbon fiber, utilizing a process used for making fishing rod blanks. The aerials are hung vertically and cured that way to ensure straightness.
Glider and sailplanes: Slighsby has been associated with sailplanes and gliders for many years and was the first company to use grp in production aircraft, as early as 1953, and was probably the first company to use cfrp materials for main structural members.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicals (UAVs): Unmanned aerial vehicles are becoming strategically quite important, operate under a blanket of extreme secrecy and have proved their value in the Kosovo conflict. The Global Hawk, for example, has an Al fuselage frame but the nacelle, radomes, rear empennage, stabilizers and wing/body fairings are all constructed of carbon fiber and fiberglass composites. These UAVs can be built almost an order of magnitude cheaper than a fighter aircraft and can be operated safely from a remote location. It is envisaged that future UAVs could be constructed from a minimum of 90% advanced composites, including carbon fiber.
Lightweight winged satellites powered by the sun achieved low weight by using a carbon epoxy framework of sparsand ribs covered with polyester film. Typical of such flying wings is the Helios, developed by Aero-Vironment and is remotely piloted aircraft having a wingspan of 75m, with the majority of its components made from carbon fiber, carbon/epoxy and Kevlar, which has reached a height of 25km.