Aircraft Parts Procurement
In a previos post I talked about the man who built a helicopter from old cars and motorbikes parts.
If you have solid tech knowledge or you have a plane (great gadget to have) you will like today post.
Although a lot of people consider Aircraft Parts hard to find, the situation is different. Finding any part for a plane is a easy job if you have internet access and patience.
For maintenance and repair operations you can find thousands of Fasteners in online shops. The National Stock Number (NSN) and Manufacturing Part number cross reference searches let you quickly find and buy the part you need.
Fasteners are a fundamental part of any vehicle; therefore, they should be incorporated in a design from the beginning to be a fully functional part of a platform. They are available in steel, stainless steel, nylon, silicon bronze, brass & aluminum materials.
Fasteners are available in a range of sizes, drives, head types, point types, finishes & materials.
Bearings are also easy to locate and buy. Bearings are found in applications ranging from automobiles, trains and airplanes, computers, construction equipment, machine tools, VCRs, refrigerators and ceiling fans.
Bearings are components that are used to reduce the amount of friction in a machine. Bearings are suitable for traction motors, mill motors, pumps, housings & variable frequency drive applications.
This reminds me of when I used to work for a major defense contractor Boeing Corporation. Every drawing contained a list of all the parts down to each fastener, bearing and screw. Although my division didn’t work on airplanes, the principal for parts procurement was still the same. In this case though each fastener had to be built to a Mil-Spec or military specification. It was amazing the level of detail. I could see why some parts cost a lot more because the specification said the part had to be built a special way, meaning the fasteners and parts had to have tooling set up just to create them. Oh – those were the days.
To build your own planes, that’s just so cool. Are there any readers here that had an experience in building aircraft? share us your story please…