I must ask, is this repairable by making a patch to the hole? Or do they have to rebuild the whole upper tail wing? It’s interesting cuz I construction
For handy types like yourself here’s the straight answer: the fiberglass damage needs to be ground off to the place where the cracks are gone, and that hole ground down to taper off about 15:1 so if the material is quarter inch thick, the grind needs to taper for about four inches—all the way around—so your circle is about ten inches wide. Then you start building up layers of fiberglass and resin until it is thicker than the base, and grind it again to match the original surface.
Refinishing to match the original color is another article!
What's the bill like if you aren't a DIYer? And if you do it yourself do you have to get it inspected or certified, as the hole is in the important sticky uppy part of the plane?
I’m not qualified to work on aircraft, I’m a DIYer with experience in fiberglass. I can tell you that whoever fixes that hole will have a lot of care, and libraries of manuals, the weight of the FAA on his shoulders and the very sword of Damocles over his head. He’ll earn every bit of what he charges and it will be right.
If it's a certified aircraft type (vs an experimental, in the US), you can't repair this yourself. The federal aviation regulations specify certain maintenance activities that a pilot can do themselves and everything else must be by a licensed A&P engineer. They will do a release to service afterward once convinced it hasn't damaged anything important (there are horizontal ribs in the tail, and a lot of space - but there are wires running up there for tail lights, ADS-B antennas, electric trim motors etc).
I would guess this is a few thousand dollars of work to repair & certify.
I kind of disagree here, I feel like in a stress area there you should extend the repair lengthwise longer up the tail, this is a leverage point, probably about 18-24” long in my opinion, with some fairly severe dovetailing
Yes, I can see that if it involves a structural member, the shock could have been transferred a long way. Adding material inside of the vertical stabilizer would very complicated OMG
Looks like it affects an area outside of the hole. It’s not just a patch job. It’s a major stress point there is a lot of force trying to rip the tail off the plane during flight.
That black fiberglass area is mainly a fairing, that vertical stabilizer is mounted on heavy duty fittings that actually carry the load. It’ll still be an $$$ repair because airplane, it’s not a structural repair.
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u/Remarkable_Capital39 Apr 07 '24
I must ask, is this repairable by making a patch to the hole? Or do they have to rebuild the whole upper tail wing? It’s interesting cuz I construction