At the Farnborough Air Show, in UK, the centre of attraction was the unmanned aircraft made from “printed” parts rather than traditional machine-tooled components. Developed at “Skunk Works” research facility in Palmdale, California, US, the Polecat unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is a 28-metre flying wing, weighing four tones. It was designed in part to test cheaper manufacturing technologies.



Skunk Works who has already invented the SR71 Blackbird - a spy plane that can travel at more than three times the speed of sound - and the radar-invisible F117 stealth fighter, apart from speed and stealth this time they are concentration on cost reduction. The Skunk Works thinks a technique called 3D rapid prototyping, or “3D printing”, is the best way to lower costs.

Frank Mauro, director of UAV systems at the Skunk Works says:

The entire Polecat airframe was constructed using low-cost rapid prototyping materials and methods the big advantage over conventional, large-scale aircraft production programmes is the cost saving in tooling as well as the order-of-magnitude reductions in fabrication and assembly time.