Floft:

FIGURE 1

Lofting Fuselages The Easy Way

When I got my first computer in 1980, By PETER GARRISON
one of my maiden projects was to write 1613 Altivo Way
a lofting program. It has evolved over Los Angeles, CA 90026
the past ten years into FLOFT. This ar-
ticle describes what FLOFT does and
how it was used to help develop the
fuselage of a particular airplane ...
namely, John Roncz's DLR.
CHIMERA
FS 100.000
1
To loft a body is to define its shape. Scale I - 5.00*
I believe the term dates from the days 6/17/90
when boats were constructed on the
main floor of a building, and full-size
patterns for their frames were laid out
in a spacious loft overhead. The chal-
lenge of lofting a boat, or any other
streamlined body, is to develop cross-
sections that blend properly into one
another. This is most easily done if the
curves used are all members of the
same mathematical family.
Various geometrical and computa-
tional procedures have been used to
produce such families of curves; the
classical one in the aircraft industry,
which was first applied in a thoroughgo-
ing way in the design of the P-51, is the
method of second-degree conic curves.
Although it has now been partly
supplanted by other techniques in the
manufacture of large airplanes, this
method is still completely appropriate to
small airplanes. Among its advantages
are its ease of use and the fact that the
curves it generates are always (like the
P-51's) pretty to look at.
Until the advent of digital computers,
loftsmen used straightedges to lay out
swarms of lines - based on a geometri-
cal demonstration by the French
philosopher Pascal - which eventually
yielded strings of intersections lying
along the desired curves. With com-
puters it's all much simpler and, of
course, faster; you tell the computer a
few parameters for a curve, and it im-
mediately spits out either a picture of it, FIGURE 2
a list of coordinates along it, or a plot

SPORT AVIATION 53

C:>FLOFT> »etk
'.in end i, y lo.cooooo, o.oocoooi: 91.5,10.75
PIO.M end .. y 10.000000, O.OOOOOOl: 180,IB.5
Ir.tjrsfctinr. i, y 10.000000, 0.0000001: 113.40.4
No* enter up to 10 control points; hit <Esc< to quit:
, ( (0.000000, 0.000000! : !10,2«.5
Y (O.MOOOO, O.OOOOOOl: 120,1?
< tO.OOOOOO. 0.000000): 130.27.B
1 '.O.OOOOOO, 0.000000): 140,27.4
• '.0.000000, O.OOOOOOl: I50,:6.I25
i. r '0.000000, O.OOOOOOl: I40,24.1
?. 1 I (O.liOOOOG, O.OOOOOOl:
t factor: 0.'499 »/-.0005
Hitch to inout points: 1.0000
FIGURE 3
Having drawn these lines (we will be
changing them as we go, so they don't
have to be precise just yet), we now
have to convert them into conic curves.
Unless we're designing something of
very simple shape, like a blimp or a BD-
5, it's unlikely that a single conic will do
for a given line; we'll have to break up
each moldline into two or three or more
segments, each of which we can closely
approximate with a conic.
There are lots of ways to go about
breaking up a curve into segments,
since conies can have lots of shapes;
for starters, however, the easiest thing
to do is to put breaks wherever the
curve is flattest. For example, look at
the side view of DLR in Figure 1. The
BW has an obvious break at around FS
185 where the curve changes from con-
vex to concave; there the curve is
momentarily perfectly flat. Another nat-
ural break seems to occur somewhere
along the bottom of the cabin around
FS 100.
We now draw tangents to the
moldline at each break point. For each
curve segment, the tangents make a
frame; the coordinates of the fore end,
the aft end, and the intersection of two
tangents, together with a fourth value
called the K factor, fully describe the
conic curve for the segment.
The K factor is a number, convention-
ally between .5 and 1, that describes
how closely the conic hugs the frame.

i.e i.e
FIGURE 4

-89 a.9

- e.e B.B -

-9 f' B.V -

0.6 -

2SO

ready to take to the shop and glue to a

piece of plywood.
The first step in lofting a body by any 10?T DATA SUItlflRY

system is to draw a picture of it. This File MM: DID

can be done with a CAD program Last revision: 4/19(90
(which FLOFT isn't) or with paper and
pencil. John Roncz uses the former
medium, I use the latter. As anyone who Sott01 naterline
has even toyed with airplane design
Scents: 4
knows, the first stage of design is that
of laying out the locations and sizes of Fore end 57.0000,-6.0000 56.0000.-I7.4000 It.0000,-21.3800 185.0000,-14.5600
powerplant and people, and then en- A f t end 56.0000,-17.6000 96.0000, -21.3800 195.0000,-14.5600 293.8280,-5.2500
Corner 40.2000,-H.2000 149.0000,-23.5000 222.5000,-5.2300
closing them in a pleasing-looking en- I (actor 0.7000
48.4400,-20.2600
0.7500 0.8000 0.7500
velope (and preferably one free of
troublesome drag).
We need four main lines, called Haist laterline
moldlines: the Top Waterline (TW),
Waist Waterline (WW), Bottom Water- Shunts: 2
line (BW), and Maximum Buttline (MB). Fore end 37.0000,-3.5000 48.0000,0.0000
(In lofting parlance, waterlines are verti- Aft end 48.0000,0.0000 293.8280,0.0000
cal dimensions, stations are lengthwise Corner 40.1000,0.0000 S
K factor
dimensions, and buttlines or buttock 0.7500

lines are widthwise dimensions.) TW

and BW are what you see in a profile
lop naterhne
view of the airplane. MB is what you
see on both sides (FLOFT assumes
airplanes are bilaterally symmetrical) in
a top view. WW is the waterline (that is, Fore end
Aft end
37.0000,0.0000
91.5000,10.7500
91.5000.10.7500
180.0000,18.5000
180.0000,18.5000
293.8280,4.2500
the height in relation to some horizontal Corner 42.0000,10.7500 113.0000.40.4000 210.0000.8.5000
reference plane) of the MB - the point 1 factor 0.7500 0.7500 0.7500
at which the fuselage is widest; it may
just be a horizontal line down the middle
of the airplane, or it may have a more
complicated shape. FIGURE 5

54 SEPTEMBER 1990
 FIGURE 6

\ '<

Cotton u » t o r l l i o
MAX buttline
Top uatnr1 in*

ML: 26.BB FIGURE 7

i f r

/ ./ / /

I I

iee 120

V \
, . \\\ \ \
t1\\\
\ \ \ \\ \x\ \xv v"•

X <TUSCLACE S1A1IGN)

SPORT AVIATION 55
A K factor of 1 means that the curve
coincides exactly with the frame. A K
factor of .5 means that the curve is a
straight line joining the ends of the
frame. A K factor of .707, when applied
to a square frame, produces a circle.
Figure 2 illustrates the significance of
the K factor: it is the fraction of the
length of a diagonal intersecting the
curve that lies on the "center" side of
the curve.
We use a little program called SEEKK
to get the K factor for each segment of
each moldline. SEEKK asks for the
coordinates of the frame and of up to
ten points that lie along the line we are
trying to match - that is, the line we drew
in the first place. It then reports the K
factor that best approximates the given
curve, together with a figure of merit in-
dicating how good the match is. If it isn't
up around .96 or better (1.00 is a perfect
fit) we need to consider relocating our
segment breaks.
Figure 3 is an example of SEEKK in
action, making a first cut at the first seg-
ment of the bottom waterline for DLR.
The dimensions are simply scaled from
the drawing, which needs to be big
enough - 1/10 scale is good - to allow
you to pick off measurements with
reasonable accuracy. Since the tan-
gents are straight lines across the seg-
ment breaks, we use two other support
utilities, POLATE and XING, to find
exact locations for third points on frame
56 SEPTEMBER 1990
lines, given any two.
We got through this same operation
for each of the segments of each of the
four moldlines, each time noting down
the coordinates of the segment ends
and of the frame's "corner", as well as
the K factor for that segment.
Now we have roughly defined the
side and top views of the body; but
what will the cross-sections look like?
Square? Elliptical? Squarish but rounded
at the corners, like a TV screen?
FLOFT will build cross-sections in the
same way we "built" each moldline seg-
ment; that is, by generating curves from
some coordinates and a K factor. In the
case of cross-sections, FLOFT as-
sumes them to be inscribed in a rec-
tangle, with top and bottom halves di-
vided at the WW. The rectangle's width
at any FS is twice the MB, and its height
is equal to the difference between the
TW and the BS. The cross-section in
Figure 2 is typical. The top half of the
curve has a K factor of .77 and the bot-
tom half one of .80.
The top and bottom K factors of fuse-
lage cross-sections will vary along the
body. For instance, one might be .707
(round) right behind a spinner, then go
to .8 on the top and .85 on the bottom
for headroom and footroom in a two-
seat cabin, and then return to, say, .75
at the tail post.
To document this variation, we draw
two graphs (preferably on 1/10-inch
graph paper) representing the vari-
ations of top and bottom K factor from
nose to tail. Like other contours, these
should be smooth; kinks in the K-factor
variation will show up as kinks in the
body. Drawing the graphs is simple; the
horizontal axis represents the body
length, the vertical axis is marked off
from .5 to 1.0, and we mark three or
four known points and then use a spline
or French curve to connect them
smoothly.
When we have these two graphs
drawn, we convert them into conies
exactly as we did the moldlines; in this
case, the Y axis values are K factors
rather than waterlines or buttlines, and
the segments have their own K factors
(not to be confused with the K factors
of the fuselage sections they repre-
sent). Figure 4 shows the bottom K fac-
tor (BK) graph for DLR, together with
the frames used to break it into conic
segments.
Having collected all these data, we
enter them in a file which we'll call, for
argument's sake, DLR.LFT. This is a
plain ASCII text file which we write with
our word processing program. Figure 5
shows part of the completed data file,
which has six data groups in all (BW,
WW, TW, MB, BK, and TK). These are
all of the parameters for the body; when
FLOFT reads this file, it can im-
mediately report the coordinates, in
three dimensions, of all points on the
 FIGURE 9

^ (tew >

Dot ion
MAX buttl ine
Top uatar 1 in*

surface of the body. It can generate can smooth out the radii graphs, at the numbers in the data file. For example,
contour maps, vertical, horizontal and same time refining your data set. When when it turned out that the spark plugs
oblique cross-sections, measurements you superimpose the corrected shape on John's airplane were outside the
of surface area and volume, lines of in- on the original one, you realize that the cowling contours, reshaping the cowl-
tersection between this body and any curves that looked fair to you on the first ing was just a matter of changing two
other lofted body, and graphs of the go-around actually left considerable or three numbers in the first segment
radius of curvature of the various room for improvement. I think of this as data for the Top K Factor. DLR has un-
holdlines along the length of the body. the digital equivalent of the pattern- dergone some 16 revisions (plus sev-
This last feature is a very useful one, maker's stroking and eyeballing process. eral smoothing operations) since the
because our first cut at a shape may On the first cut illustrated here, I de- first sketch as various requirements for
not be as geometrically smooth as we liberately incorporated the canopy in the clearance and aerodynamic fairness
would like. Remember, we simply drew body loft for the sake of pointing out a became apparent, and I think John
the airplane on a piece of paper and pitfall of that approach. Figure 7 shows would agree that the work was as nearly
converted it into a computer model. a contour map (top view) of the effortless as it could be.
Each segment is smooth, but how well windshield. Note its bluntness, which FLOFT runs on IBM PC's and com-
do they blend into one another? Were comes from the fact that it has the same patibles with at least 256 kilobytes of
the curves we drew really optimal, and K factor as the fuselage top ahead of it. memory. It can be used entirely in text
did we break them into segments in the Many airplanes are lofted this way, but mode, directing numerical output to a
best possible way? it's better to loft the canopy as a sepa- printer or to the screen; but it is much
Figure 6 shows the moldline radii for rate body, streamlined in the front and more powerful and more pleasant to
TW, BW, and MB for our first cut. Do blending smoothly into the fuselage at use with a graphics display (which can
you see how broken and scalloped the the rear. Figure 8 shows the contour map be EGA, VGA, or Hercules, with resolu-
lines are? Scallops indicate long sur- of such a canopy, and Figure 9 shows tions from 640x350 to 800x600 pixels).
face waves not yet apparent to the eye; how the radii graphs for the canopy It can drive plotters that understand
steps indicate sudden discontinuities in merge into those of the fuselage. Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language
radius of curvature. Whether these im- You have now seen how FLOFT (HP-GL). FLOFT does not require a
perfections would have significant aes- works, and you perhaps understand math coprocessor, but it must do huge
thetic or aerodynamic consequences why it is such a convenience. Part of its numbers of calculations and so runs
we don't know; but John and I both felt value is that it puts all the information much faster with one than without.
intuitively that it is worthwhile to smooth you ever need for tooling and drafting FLOFT, together with the support
the radius graphs. at your fingertips; in fact, it can produce programs XING, POLATE, and SEEKK,
FLOFT includes an EDIT command coordinate files that can be read by Au- sample data files and complete (though
which enables you to break curve seg- toCAD and incorporated directly into terse) documentation, costs $185 and
ments into two or combine two into one, engineering drawings. can be ordered on 5.15- or 3.5-inch
change K factors, and change the loca- Another part of its value is that it gives disks. My address is 1613 Altivo Way,
tions, angles, and points of tangency of you a means of making changes to your Los Angeles, CA 90026 (phone 2137
frames. With a little experimenting you design by simply changing one or two 665-1397).

SPORT AVIATION 57