In the reception area at Burt Rutan’s Mojave, California, skunk works, Scaled Composites, there sits on a corner table a small black tripod with a cup-shaped receptacle on top. Built by composites engineer Stan Stawski, who works at Scaled, it supported two tons before failing. It weighs less than four ounces.
Getting the most strength for the least weight is the real crux of aeronautical engineering. In airplanes, structure is a necessary evil. The same could be said of fuel, and the two evils come together in airplanes intended to fly extremely long distances.
