As far as building a Junior in two days, maybe, but I'd still think in
terms of 680 man hours as the substantial difference is fixed gear vs
retract. Two days is a meaningless concept without knowing whether 30-40
people were involved for 8 or 12 hour shifts.


I suspect that one Junior emerged from the factory every 2 days but surely
they must have spent longer on the line than 2 days. If for instance you
have 5 stations on the line and each airframe spent 2 days at each station
that is a total of 10 days on the line. Now if 3 guys worked in each station
with two shifts that is a total of 5 (stations) x 2 (days) x 3 (# guys) x 8
(shift hours) x 2 (# shifts) = 480 hours. This seems achievable for a simple
glider. I just cannot see how a sailplane of conventional construction could
be made in an elapsed time of only 2 days when cure time etc is allowed for.

If indead it is true that the Junior was made in 2 days with two shifts then
this deserves careful study. Does anyone have a PDF copy of the Junior
maintenance manual ????

Janusz ... do you have any more info on this ????


Frank,

Filament winding is one method that's been shown to work, at least by
Rutan.

There is a lot of conflicting information around on exactly how Rutan builds
his airframes. Some people say thay he uses a tape layer and others filament
winding. How confident are you in your information that he filament winds ?
If filament winding is used (and I believe this is probably the case) then I
am assuming he uses prepreg tow ???? Or is he using a wet layup with one of
the resins that has an extraordinarly long pot life (1-2 days) (there are
some excellent wet layup resins available now that are meant for this sort
of application).


However, there are limitations to the process that might make it
impractical
for most glider production.

Such as ????


Even then, the pod took something like 7 hours
to wind and the fuselage was 24 hours of continuous processing.

Are you refering to the Boomerang ????

It sounds like you have some knowledge of the Rutan processes ... can you
outline the process. What does he use for the plug to wind around ??? What
sort of winding machine - a simple two axis thing or something more complex
?? What sort of tow (12k ... 24k etc) ??? Does he wind a grid arrangement
of stiffeners on the inside of the fuselage ??? (it appears so from some
photo's you see) And the really big question .... how does he get the
outside smooth (perhaps this is one of the limitations you mention ??? -
perhaps this involved a lot of hand filling and sanding ?). What is the cure
.... oven ??? room temperature ??? What are the thickesses of the skins ?
What is the typical winding angle ?