Project Description
The senior year of STEM, students are allowed to pick between working on building a plane, Project Pegasus, or working on creating a product of their own design that solves some issue facing the world today. When faced with this choice, I decided to go the route of building a plane, because I thought it would be interesting and I would learn a lot from it. Both of these ended up being true. The plane we are building is a Vans RV-12 Light Sport Aircraft, meaning it is a small airplane with two seats that are next to each other. Before we began working on the plane, we first had to assemble a toolbox in groups of four. This was to help is get more familiar and comfortable with the tools we would be working with this year. Then, we broke up into smaller groups. Joey and I were selected to work on the fuselage. It involved a lot of reading through the plans, especially in the beginning stages. The fuselage had been worked on two years ago, so we had to catch up and figure out exactly what it was they had and hadn't done. The rest of the year was a blur. We worked on a lot of separate projects and small pieces, but it ended with the tailcone and fuselage attached and all of the plane in the previous autoshop. If you would like to read more about the year and would like to read more detailed accounts of what we did and see pictures of the progress, feel free to download the documents below. They are progress updates that we did at different points in the year, detailing the progress made each time.
The senior year of STEM, students are allowed to pick between working on building a plane, Project Pegasus, or working on creating a product of their own design that solves some issue facing the world today. When faced with this choice, I decided to go the route of building a plane, because I thought it would be interesting and I would learn a lot from it. Both of these ended up being true. The plane we are building is a Vans RV-12 Light Sport Aircraft, meaning it is a small airplane with two seats that are next to each other. Before we began working on the plane, we first had to assemble a toolbox in groups of four. This was to help is get more familiar and comfortable with the tools we would be working with this year. Then, we broke up into smaller groups. Joey and I were selected to work on the fuselage. It involved a lot of reading through the plans, especially in the beginning stages. The fuselage had been worked on two years ago, so we had to catch up and figure out exactly what it was they had and hadn't done. The rest of the year was a blur. We worked on a lot of separate projects and small pieces, but it ended with the tailcone and fuselage attached and all of the plane in the previous autoshop. If you would like to read more about the year and would like to read more detailed accounts of what we did and see pictures of the progress, feel free to download the documents below. They are progress updates that we did at different points in the year, detailing the progress made each time.
Initial Pegasus Progress Report | |
File Size: | 330 kb |
File Type: |
Second Pegasus Progress Report | |
File Size: | 809 kb |
File Type: |
Third Pegasus Progress Report | |
File Size: | 1163 kb |
File Type: |
Final Pegasus Progress Report | |
File Size: | 1375 kb |
File Type: |
Terms and Definitions
Fuselage: The front part of the plane where the pilot and passenger sit. It also holds the engine, instruments, and fuel in this specific plane model.
Tailcone: The rear part of the plane that is meant to help aerodynamics and help steer the plane with the various attachments.
Cleco Fastener: A special tool that can be used to hold two pieces of metal together, much like a clamp but it is inserted into drilled holes to keep pieces together.
Pull Rivet: A type of rivet where a piece called a mandrill is pulled, squeezing the rivet and pulling the two pieces of metal together.
Squeeze Rivet: A different type of rivet that is squeezed so the top is flattened, pushing the metal together and not allowing it to be separated.
Deburr: The act of removing extra metal from the outside of a drilled hole so it doesn't scrape any joining pieces and so the joining pieces are flush.
Fuselage: The front part of the plane where the pilot and passenger sit. It also holds the engine, instruments, and fuel in this specific plane model.
Tailcone: The rear part of the plane that is meant to help aerodynamics and help steer the plane with the various attachments.
Cleco Fastener: A special tool that can be used to hold two pieces of metal together, much like a clamp but it is inserted into drilled holes to keep pieces together.
Pull Rivet: A type of rivet where a piece called a mandrill is pulled, squeezing the rivet and pulling the two pieces of metal together.
Squeeze Rivet: A different type of rivet that is squeezed so the top is flattened, pushing the metal together and not allowing it to be separated.
Deburr: The act of removing extra metal from the outside of a drilled hole so it doesn't scrape any joining pieces and so the joining pieces are flush.