Overview
How much of a real aircraft can you rebuild from drawings and photographs alone? In this personal project I am modelling the fuselage of a Beechcraft Bonanza A36 in SolidWorks and fitting it with a nose landing gear that retracts and extends in a motion study, so that the mechanism can be seen working inside the aircraft and not just on its own.
How it grew
The project started smaller: only the belly of the aircraft around the nose-gear bay, with the gear and its doors. Once the nose-gear mechanism was finished, that felt too simple, so the scope grew to the whole fuselage.
The fuselage is modelled by eye from public drawings and photographs. The proportions follow the real aircraft, but the dimensions are approximate. The finished nose-gear mechanism will then be integrated into it.
