Textron Innovations Inc.

Aaron Paul Shirley

Clark Ray Miller

Joshua Ross Huston

Bradley Randal Higgins

Royce Heick

William Richardson

David Ted Krehbiel

Jason Short

An aircraft skin alignment system includes a support structure to support one or more aircraft skins, a puller tool, and a clamp tool; the puller tool having a base, the base supporting a holding mechanism to releasably engage with a first aircraft skin and a pulling mechanism to apply a pulling force to the first aircraft skin when the first aircraft skin is engaged with the holding mechanism; and the clamp tool having a body supporting an edge locator; the puller tool is to pull the first aircraft skin such that a first edge of the aircraft skin abuts the edge locator, the edge locator preventing the first edge from being pulled past the edge locator; and tool holes can be drilled into the first aircraft skin such that the tool holes are aligned based on an edge index due to a position of the edge locator.

Aircraft skin alignment system and method with edge indexing

A shot-peen forming system includes a shot-sourcing chamber and a plurality of conduits, each having a first end and a second end. The first ends are coupled to the shot-sourcing chamber for receiving a portion of shot. A plurality of peen-forming jets are coupled to the second end of a respective one of the plurality of conduits. The plurality of jets are each adapted to fire shot in one of a plurality of predetermined directions to simultaneously deliver shot to a workpiece. An omnidirectional shot peening delivery system includes a plurality of nozzles positioned for shot peening from a plurality of angles, respectively. A shot distributor is adapted to receive shot through an inlet and distribute shot to the plurality of nozzles, and a workpiece holder is adapted to constrain a workpiece for receiving shot from the plurality of nozzles simultaneously to provide conformity during shot-peen forming.

Shot peen forming system

Growing community of inventors

Wichita, KS, United States of America

Aaron Paul Shirley