Case Study: Royal Australian Air Force achieves rapid repair turnaround—cutting aircraft downtime from weeks to days with 3D Systems Geomagic reverse engineering and 3D inspection

Australian Air Force Reduces Time on Ground with Geomagic Reverse Engineering and 3D Inspection

The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), which operates 71 F/A-18s, faced long aircraft ground times when wing structural cracks required stainless-steel doubler fittings. The traditional workflow—taking dental-putty impressions, manually measuring molds, creating CAD models and CNC milling—achieved the required 0.25 mm tolerance but often took up to six weeks and produced multiple rejected samples, prolonging aircraft downtime.

Engineering firm Wysiwyg 3D introduced a portable FARO seven-axis arm and scanner plus Geomagic Design X and Geomagic Control software. Scans (<5 minutes) are converted to accurate NURBS models, exported to Mastercam for NC code and a first-fit aluminum bracket in under 24 hours, then inspected and adjusted in Geomagic Control before final stainless fabrication. The new process cuts repair time to 2–3 days, reduces rework and grounded time, and enables faster, field-capable repairs with plans to move to direct aircraft scanning.

Royal Australian Air Force