former

former

Electrical engineering a tool for giving a coil or winding the required shape, sometimes consisting of a frame on which the wire can be wound, the frame then being removed

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

former

Transverse members used to give a required shape to a fabric-covered fuselage or body on which the stringers rest and to support the skin of a monocoque structure. Formers dividing a fuselage into compartments are called bulkheads.

An Illustrated Dictionary of Aviation Copyright © 2005 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved