A YouTuber Is 3D-Printing an Entire Airplane Inside His Apartment

Evan, the creator behind the YouTube channel Error by Human, is 3D-printing an entire Part 103 airplane in his apartment. The fuselage is already taking shape. The final plane will stand roughly 16 feet tall, and every structural piece is coming from a desktop 3D printer.

Why build a plane indoors

The project started as a design experiment. Evan spent more than five months designing the aircraft before he began printing. Part 103 ultralights have minimal certification requirements in the US, which makes them a realistic target for a solo builder. The trade-off is that the structure still has to hold together in flight.

He is reinforcing the 3D-printed parts with carbon fiber skins over foam cores. That sandwich approach gives stiffness without the weight penalty of solid plastic. The fuselage sections are being printed separately and will be joined once the pieces fit together properly.

The apartment build is as much a tolerance exercise as a printing exercise. Evan is working in sections: back, center, and front. Printing the whole fuselage in one go would be ideal, but most desktop printers cannot handle a 16-foot part. Splitting the structure means each piece has to align accurately when it is assembled.

Budget constraints forced creativity

The YouTuber is running the build on a tight budget. That meant finding workarounds instead of ordering custom parts. The carbon fiber wrapping, for instance, is being applied manually. The foam cores are cut to shape rather than CNC milled. Those choices slow the build down but keep the project affordable enough to continue.

There is no clear blueprint for a custom Part 103 designed this way. Evan is effectively engineering the plane as he goes, testing fit and strength at each stage. The seat is already in the cockpit. The nose is starting to come together. The project is moving from design into assembly.

What this says about desktop 3D printing

This is not a kit plane. It is a one-off experimental build that depends on 3D printing for structural parts. If it flies, it will be a strong data point for what desktop printers can do when paired with traditional composite reinforcement. The aviation world is already watching: Part 103 ultralights are simple enough that a successful home-built 3D-printed example could influence how other experimental aircraft projects approach structural components.

The latest build video is live on YouTube. The plane is already around 13 feet tall, and the remaining sections are in progress.