Science and the new human-ism

A laminate construction for an airfoil wing type member, such as a helicopter rotor blade, is produced by machine winding multiple layers of reinforcing fiber about a foil-like material support layer on a rotatable mandrel. The laminate construction is cut from the mandrel and shaped to the desired configuration in a mold cavity with the addition of a hardenable resin filler material. In adjacent layers the fibers are wound to form a diamond shaped pattern. The pitch angles of the fibers in different layers can be varied to accommodate different conditions, and, in addition, the length of the wound layers along the mandrel can be varied as required.