PDA Victory wind tunnel model

The Victory project took laser scan point cloud data of a prototype Army helicopter provided by PDA, Inc. to fabricate a scale model for wind tunnel testing.  We took the STL file generated from the point cloud and partitioned it into subsections that fit in the envelope of our rapid prototyper.

The bottom section was modified before printing to include a structural mounting plate for the wind tunnel sting, and after printing the sections were glued, surfaced, and painted.

Several series of wind tunnel tests were run using attached streamers and other techniques that allowed PDA, Inc to identify areas of the body that would benefit from further streamlining.