Fiberglass (7725 e-glass)/Yd

Note: 38" wide. Sold by the yard

The most basic structural material in building a composite aircraft is glass cloth. The use of glass in aircraft structures, particularly structural sandwich composites, is a recent development. Glass cloth is available commercially in hundreds of different weights, weaves, strengths and working properties. Very few of these, however, are compatible with aircraft requirements for high strength and light weight. Even fewer are suitable for the hand-layup techniques developed by Burt Rutan for the homebuilder. The glass cloth featured here has been specifically selected for the optimum combination of workability, strength and weight.

This is a bi-directional cloth and a uni-directional cloth are used. BID cloth has half of the fibers woven parallel to the selvage edge of the cloth and the other half at right angles to the selvage, giving the cloth the same strength in both directions. BID is generally used for pieces which are cut at a 45° angle to the selvage, a bias cut, which enables the builder to lay BID into contours with very little effort and provides the needed shear and torsion stiffness for flying surfaces. Multiple layers of glass cloth are laminated together to form aircraft parts/structures.  Each layer of cloth is called a "ply".