Vulture 2 spaceplane STRIPPED to the bone

Detailed structural plans for your viewing pleasure

The Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) team is preparing the Vulture 2 aircraft for its eye-catching paintjob, and while we rattle tins of primer and fiddle with wet-and-dry, we thought you might enjoy some intimate bare-bones views of our magnificent spaceplane.

Here's the beast in its naked form (more photos here)...

...and here's how it looks if you peer beneath the skin, in a plan view of David Cooper, Chris Dodd and Amrith Surendra's design:

We're much obliged to Chris for putting together full constructional drawings, which also include these striking poses:

Tremendous stuff. The feature of the Vulture 2's design which has attracted most comment – and indeed applause from Barnes Wallis fans – is the geodetic structure.

While you can't fully appreciate this from outside...

...the bare-bones views reveal the true beauty:

Note that the above views don't represent the definitive CAD files which went off to the 3D printers, since there were a couple of minor tweaks for practical printing and assembly purposes.

We will, in due course, release the final files (as we did with our Vulture 1), should any of you fancy printing out your own rocketship. ®

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Further LOHAN resources:

• New to LOHAN? Try this mission summary for enlightenment.
• You can find full LOHAN coverage right here.
• Join the expert LOHAN debate down at Reg forums.
• All the LOHAN and Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) vids live on YouTube.
• For our SPB photo archive, proceed directly to Flickr.
• We sometimes indulge in light consensual tweeting, as you can see here.

LOHAN - A Special Projects Bureau production in association with...

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