wing rebuild spar splice

N

n8021c

New member
I am new to the club and I am starting a project that will need conciderable wing work. I am interested in repair of slight rot at the bottom of the spar where the landing gear trunion mounts up the spacer is no problem but what is the recomended repair for the main spar?
 
You need to find the old FAA publication for mechanics AC 43-13-1B, I think you can read it online at the FAA website. Any repair must fit into one of scenarios listed and illustrated in the wood repair section. If you concoct your own repair idea that cannot be justified by what you see there, no IA can sign it off. What you hope for is that you can do an "inlay" repair if the rot is not too deep. IMHO a spar splice is too large in scope and difficulty for the average builder. As you try to remove plywood skins to access the (huge) repair area needed the 60 year old brittle plywood will disintegrate. The last Bellanca spar splice done at the factory that I heard of had a $16000 bill attached to it. Ken A&P/IA
 
We have several Bellanca-specific manuals on the subject; two of them are B10-011 Wood (low) Wing Inspection and B10-091 Heller Spar Splice. Both are listed in our Publication Catalog.

Regards,
 
The URL for the FAA site of the document is:

http://www.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library%5CrgAdvisoryCircular.nsf/0/99C827DB9BAAC81B86256B4500596C4E?OpenDocument

This is a great book to have along with the club documents that Robert advised. AC 43.13-1B is considered "acceptable data" to the FAA and may be used as "approved data" subject to the conditions they list in the "Purpose" section of the AC.

As Ken said above - with out "approved data", the FAA or any IA who wants to keep his ticket is not even going to want to look at it.

Of course if you are in to black leather, whips, chains, and self flagellation, you can always try for a field approval!

BTW - you can get to any FAA AC from :

http://www.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgAdvisoryCircular.nsf

Good luck! Larry
 
All I have to do is look at my aircraft's logs to learn the procedure...many a tumble in my 14-19's history and more than one spar splice. Poor thing began life on skis in Alaska.

She's a wonderfully straight airplane. Thus I have to think the splices worked <cough>.

Jonathan
 
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