Airbus Explores building planes with Giant 3D Printers

Bastian Schafer, a cabin designer with Airbus, has been working for the last two years on a concept plane that would be built from the ground up with a 3D printer that’s very large indeed ... as big as an aircraft hanger.

"Schafer’s concept plane is also so dizzyingly complicated that it requires radical manufacturing methods: from the curved fuselage to the bionic structure, to the transparent skin that gives passengers a panoramic view of the sky and clouds around them."

In this Forbes article, the vision is set against the reality of today's 3D Printing possibilities."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2012/07/11/airbus-explores-a-future-where-planes-are-built-with-giant-3d-printers/