I find you do not really need a cad package for kr work, but if you really
want one, then autocad is quite good, I self taught myself and can do pretty
much most things, its not hard, but you do need to be consistent, and the time
spent learning it is probably better off spent building your aeroplane, I
learn't it for work and after some experience did things like take 2d pcb
drawings and convert them into 3d models for documentation, assembly reference
and overlay etc etc etc. I used teh work version for legitimate purposes, but
bought a illicit copy for $40 of the internet for home use, autodesk cannot
complain as my talents and abilities convinced two persons if not more, that
autocad was the way to go. I cannot afford or justify 7 grand just for home
use, and there were no lite or student versions around then. Turbocad is also
quite good and affordable, and works much like autocad. I found a bug in
autocad, when its booting up if you boot it up again, it all works fine untill
you shut it down, it then has hernias because there are dual processes running,
it turns them off and then finds the process is still running ( because you
started that process twice ), and so falls in a heap. I told autodesk about it
and the next release didn't have this problem any more. There are a lot of
cheapi packages around now, search cad magazines, ( amazingly enough, such
valuable sources of information seem to have vanished around here, but that
happens a lot in this part of the world ), to find what is available, and there
are a lot of student versions around and "Lite" versions also. If you have cad
skills, then you can put them to use in building you plane, but its not really
worthwhile to go out of your way to learn cad, unless you have a passionate
interest in cad AND building aeroplanes.
Chris Johnston
North Richmond
Australia
