Designing airplanes and weapons.

[Axon]

There is a question that has been spinning in my head for quite a while, how to design an airplane and a weapons? let's say you have an idea about a weapons design or a jet fighter design.  How would you start the first steps in completely designing this system. Is there a specific softwares used for designing such systems, I'm really interested in designing weapons(handguns, assault rifles and sniper rifles) and jet fighters, this because I always imagine myself doing this for fun and profit, and sometimes I imagine specific designs of jet fighters,  so I just want to translate my thoughts into reality.  At least on papers

I know for sure when you design a jet fighter, it doesn't mean the design is perfect because sometimes the design may not be aerodynamically fit, or aerothermodynamically fit. But designing is the first step towards perfection. 

[RedBullAddicted]

Not sure.. The company I am working for is in the automobile industry and the engineers use CAD programs to design car parts and tools. AutoCAD or Catia are the names. I have absolutely no experience with it but I thought I just leave these two names here

Cheers,
RBA

[Kulverstukas]

Yeah, all that is most likely drawn and planned in CAD, larger companies use Project lifecycle management software to join everything.

[pllaybuoy]

Designs are made on CAD software , I believe . Apart from that you should take mechanical engineering in bachelors if you are interested in this stuff , it is the only way you get the most of machines and yes those include jets , cars and ammunition . If you are talented enough you might even get a job in some good company

[karsa]

AutoCAD or Catia are the names.

And ProEngineer, don't forget that one.
My father does this kind of thing. He's mechanical engineer and has great love for weapons. He's been fiddling around with his own handgun design for some time now, has a ton of sketches and simulations. I'm not sure if he uses Catia or ProEngineer for thermal and other simulations though. I sometimes see him struggle with ideas and designs and he has 30 years of hands on experience, so this is definitely not for everyone. If its your passion, by all means go for it.

[Axon]

Thank you all for the feedback. Some programs I've never heard of them before like ProEngineer and Citia.

Apart from that you should take mechanical engineering in bachelors if you are interested in this stuff

I already have a bachelor degree in physics,but for sure a physicist can understand mechanical engineering concepts and equations. At the end, mechanical engineering is heavily based on physics and mathematics.

I sometimes see him struggle with ideas and designs and he has 30 years of hands on experience, so this is definitely not for everyone. If its your passion, by all means go for it.

I can clearly see that I've a long road to cross, but I'm willing to take the chance and advance myself.

[Mordred]

Surely you have studied Newtonian mechanics and materials strength. Guaranteed at least the first one. So technically you're good to go as far as the design and part of the functionality is concerned. Maybe you could also offer an improved design of an engine if you start off from a base model, but I don't think you could build one from scratch.

Also might I recommend OpenVSP: http://www.openvsp.org/

"At the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics Aerospace Sciences Meeting in Nashville, NASA engineers unveiled the newly open sourced OpenVSP, software that allows users to construct full aircraft models from simple parameters such as wing span and fuselage length, under the NASA Open Source Agreement. Says the website, 'OpenVSP allows the user to create a 3D model of an aircraft defined by common engineering parameters. This model can be processed into formats suitable for engineering analysis.'"

I heard it's quite an interesting piece of software.

[Axon]

Surely you have studied Newtonian mechanics and materials strength.

Also might I recommend OpenVSP: http://www.openvsp.org/

I heard it's quite an interesting piece of software.

I've studied Newtonian mechanics but material strength, I don't think so. In physics there is only material science (Solid state physics, Condensed matter physics), as for the software, you have my deep gratitude for this. +1

[ovi_x]

you  can  build stuff  but  you  have  to  have an  understanding of how  stuff works , look  at the pionners of mechanics like Ford
If  you want  I will take  a part my  shutgun make picture sow  you  can work on  some upgrades
I  have  an  semiautomatic shutgun

[Mordred]

I don't mean material science, I mean indeed material strength.

This refers to the amounts of stress a particular type of alloy or chemical composition (usually solids) can take. For example you need material strength of, for instance, aluminum, in order to be able to calculate the thickness, density, layering and composition than you need for the shell of a plane. If you don't know it's tolerances, you can't design almost any part of the device that is under the effect of torsion or other forces (friction etc).

This is usually studied in the engineering schools that deal with buildings, water installations and related. If you did a pure physics background (like I did as well) then you didn't take these classes.

Unfortunately they are critical for the design of something like a weapon or airplane.

[Axon]

ovi_x: Thank you for the help, but I prefer to start from scratch. I'll download the OpenVSP and try to play with and learn its basics.

Mordred: My education was in the field of applied physics, but we didn't study the subject of materials hardness and the techniques used to test it. Do you recommend a certain book that should cover the subjects of interest.

[Mordred]

Unfortunately my personal background is also in the field of mathematics and theoretical physics so I don't have any knowledge on the subject apart from what I've told you already. Sorry I can't be of more help.

[Darkvision]

Basically their are a number of different versions/types of CAD. They are used for a number of different things. such as a engenering CAD could allow you to render how a say engine you built inside of it operates, and even do some virtual testing on the design, but if your trying to go from scratch to a working airplane, you would really need a number of different versions of CAD. And frankly im not sure where you would start, thought the plant would probably be the place to start, as after that you know your thrust, and therefore what kind of speed/friction/gforces the frame and body need to withstand, as well as how much fuel capacity you will need to get x far, take into account weight of all components you want/add into it....yeah sounds like it would be a VERY long process for an individual. not saying it hasnt been done here or their, but generally anything modern like that is done by at least a small 2-10 man team. Be prepared to learn a whole lot of math, several new programs and how to use them.


However if your just looking to take whats in your head and put it on paper to look at so to speak even if its not feasable/tested. then a rather basic version of cad would be needed and then you just need a PC powerful enough to render it, which in that case isnt much nowadays.