Cheers,
Yesterday, a buddy and I went to the airport and recovered the
Europa wings on the trailer, from the hangar. The intent was to match same
to fuselage for purposes of rationalising feed-through sites for wiring and
odd items. By the way, these and the other surfaces were beautifully
finished by a local firm to a tough mirror finish.
All was normal on the 30-minute trek back home, and we unloaded same
onto brackets built to set them vertically (nose-down) prior to installing
them. When we began the sequence, I noticed a discolouration on the port
leading edge and discovered a smashed leading edge about two inches in
diameter, right on the leading edge - right down into the blue foam.
This corresponded to the position of the wing in the rubber strap
(lined with bubble-wrap). I noted that the pip-pin for the strap structure
hinge release sits dead-centre under the strap. Sure enough the strap was
pure (?) rubber and I could stretch it downward with just my fist. There is
no question that, given the odd bump neatly handled by the trailer, evolved
into a surge of the wing down until the pip-pin punctured the wing.
This is going to lead to at least a week's delay, in rebuilding the
wing and then driving it about 70 miles on country roads to the now-retired
re-finisher. He took the tools/fixtures with him to his home airport.
So this is a belated warning:
(a) reposition the clamp-folding pip-pin to another suitable site away from
the wing leading edge, and
(b) replace the rubbery slings with some (preferably white) rubber with
cloth reinforcement to resist excess stretching. I'm still going to line
same with bubble wrap as I have saved acres of it and it works.
I will be canvassing McMaster-Carr and similar sources for same. If
you are light years ahead of me and already possess same, please advise.
All advice gratefully accepted.......
Ferg Kyle
Classic mono 914 (ten years on 24 May)
|