aalexander
New member
Well, I opened up my other wing yesterday. It was an afternoon of surprises, none of them good. There is a single line in the airframe logbook which says "repaired left wing as per w/o # XXXXXXX" and has the stamp of a now defunct repair station. Amazing what can be concealed in such a sucinct entry. The first surprise what that the repair station had attatched the fabric using small head *steel* pop rivets. Since I'm recovering, no big deal, except that the steel rivets are extremely difficult to drill out correctly. The drill shows an affinity for eating the (comparitively) soft aluminum of the rib rather than the harder steel of the rivet, so the holes tend to wind up bigger and oblong.
The next discovery was that the rear spar had obviously broken as it was spliced, and not a factory splice. The doublers on the splice, instead of the 1:5 "feathering" specified in 43-13 were merely given a 45 degree bevel. THere's evidence that a previous doubler was pried up, taking with it bits of wood from the spar.
In order to affect this repair, one of the ribs had to be removed from the spars. This had been accomplished by cutting the rib where the spars goe through. I don't know if this is kosher in itself, but the "repair" of the cut rib was crudely fashioned (and I do mean crude) doublers, which were fastened to the rib with the same dime store steel pop rivets used to attatch the fabric. I'm surprised that they didn't make the doublers out of an old tomato can
The final surprise came as we removed the leading edge metal, and discovered that in the area of the repair (wing root to one rib outboard of the fuel tank) the aluminum angles which run along the nose ribs under the leading edge metal to give additional support to the leading edge metal had just been torn off, and not replaced. And by torn, I do mean torn. The remainder of the strips on the untouched portion of the wing were just torn off, not cut. Amazing. Mostly, I'm just venting here. I find it very discouraging to see crappy work done by people who know better. Any commentary is welcomed.
By the way, is anyone else out there in the middle of a champ/citabria recover project?
The next discovery was that the rear spar had obviously broken as it was spliced, and not a factory splice. The doublers on the splice, instead of the 1:5 "feathering" specified in 43-13 were merely given a 45 degree bevel. THere's evidence that a previous doubler was pried up, taking with it bits of wood from the spar.
In order to affect this repair, one of the ribs had to be removed from the spars. This had been accomplished by cutting the rib where the spars goe through. I don't know if this is kosher in itself, but the "repair" of the cut rib was crudely fashioned (and I do mean crude) doublers, which were fastened to the rib with the same dime store steel pop rivets used to attatch the fabric. I'm surprised that they didn't make the doublers out of an old tomato can
The final surprise came as we removed the leading edge metal, and discovered that in the area of the repair (wing root to one rib outboard of the fuel tank) the aluminum angles which run along the nose ribs under the leading edge metal to give additional support to the leading edge metal had just been torn off, and not replaced. And by torn, I do mean torn. The remainder of the strips on the untouched portion of the wing were just torn off, not cut. Amazing. Mostly, I'm just venting here. I find it very discouraging to see crappy work done by people who know better. Any commentary is welcomed.
By the way, is anyone else out there in the middle of a champ/citabria recover project?