Aircraft Engine & Airframe Design Archive

An interactive, data-driven encyclopedia of aircraft families. Each family tells a chronological "journey" through every variant built over time — from the engine up to the full airframe — with:

• 🛩 Interactive 3D models (react-three-fiber) — authored glTF, with a parametric fallback generated from each aircraft's real dimensions.
• 📐 Technical blueprints — top/side SVG views scaled from the same data.
• ⚙️ Engine details — thrust, bypass ratio, fan diameter, manufacturer.
• 📊 Dimensions & performance — length, span, MTOW, range, ceiling, seating.
• 🗓 Production timelines — first flight, entry into service, milestones.
• 🛡 Safety records — hull-loss rate per million departures, with explicit public-source attribution per aircraft.

The first fully built-out family is the Airbus A320 family (A318 / A319 / A320 / A321 / A321XLR). Other Airbus families (A220, A330, A350, A380, A300/A310) are declared as roadmap stubs.

Tech stack

• React 18 + Vite
• react-three-fiber + drei + three for 3D
• react-router (hash router, so it deploys cleanly to static hosts/GitHub Pages)
• Plain-JS data layer — the whole archive is diff-able in git, no database.

Projector apps (sideload APKs)

The archive doubles as a big-screen appliance: projector/ builds two tiny (~11 KB) Android WebView kiosk apps for HY300-class Android 11 projectors. Each boots fullscreen over WiFi and auto-retries until the network is up.

App	Loads	Download
Live Aviation	the live flight tracker — 3D globe of aircraft currently in the air	live-aviation.apk
Universe Engine	sinhaankur.com/tv — planets, the Sun, constellations, TV-first navigation	universe-engine.apk

Install from a pendrive: copy both APKs to a USB stick (FAT32), plug it into the projector, open the file manager, tap each APK and allow Install from unknown sources. Full steps live on the site's Projector tab.

Rebuild: cd projector && ./gradlew assembleRelease (needs JDK 17 + Android SDK 34; outputs land in projector/app/build/outputs/apk/).

Project structure

src/
  data/
    schema.js              # documented data shapes + risk buckets
    engines.js             # shared engine catalogue
    families/a320.js       # A320 family: variants + full specs/safety/timeline
    index.js               # family registry + lookups
  three/
    AircraftViewer.jsx     # R3F canvas: loads glTF or builds procedural model
    ProceduralAircraft.jsx # parametric airframe from dimensions data
  components/
    Blueprint.jsx          # SVG top/side technical drawing from dimensions
  pages/
    Home.jsx               # all families
    FamilyPage.jsx         # the "family journey" timeline
    AircraftPage.jsx       # 3D + blueprint + engines + specs + safety
public/models/             # authored .glb models (see docs/blender-pipeline.md)
public/apk/                # built projector APKs, served by GitHub Pages
projector/                 # Android WebView kiosk apps (two flavors, see above)
blender/                   # source .blend files
docs/blender-pipeline.md   # Blender → glTF export workflow

Adding a new aircraft or family

1. Add/extend a file in src/data/families/. Follow the Aircraft and Family shapes documented in src/data/schema.js.
2. Register the family in src/data/index.js and add its variants to AIRCRAFT_BY_FAMILY.
3. (Optional) Author a glTF in Blender and wire it in — see docs/blender-pipeline.md. Until then the parametric model and blueprint render automatically from your dimensions.

A note on data & safety figures

All specifications are nominal public figures for reference and visual design, not certified engineering data. Safety figures (hull-loss rates, accident counts) are cumulative lifetime values drawn from public aviation-safety records and are attributed per aircraft in each variant's safety.sources. New types with little service history are shown as "—" rather than a misleading rate.

Roadmap

• Phase 1 — data schema, A320 family, procedural 3D + blueprint, full UI.
• Phase 2 — author real Blender glTF airframes + standalone engine models.
• Phase 3 — comparison view (overlay variants), per-component exploded views.
• Phase 4 — Boeing / Embraer / other manufacturers.