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Mechanic's House Of Horrors

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PTAirco

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 20, 2003
Messages
4,006
Location
Corona CA
I'm sure we've all come across stuff in airplanes where we thought "what the hell were they thinking?

I'll start this thread with this: 0311171757 (Copy).jpg

This is the center aileron hinge.

A Citabria wing, rebuilt not that long ago. Had to pull off the fabric and recover for various reasons. The spars looked look totally dog-legged when viewed from the wing root. I assume the previous mechanic hadn't heard of the term trammeling. I squared everything up before recovering and fixing some other stuff. Got the diagonals between the drag struts to within 1/16" and everything looked straight again. Recovered everything. Put the wing back on the airplane. Aileron hinges would not line up with the hinges on the spar. Looked at the aileron which I hadn't touched since I was told it was fine. What you're looking at in the picture is the center hinge. They shimmed it more than 1/4" and put it all back with a variety of rivets they had lying around. Obviously (well, obvious now...) they tried to make the aileron fit their crookedly rebuilt wing! No wonder the owner reported that the right aileron had a tendency to "pop up" whenever the stick was deflected more than halfway. Every time you did that, it would flex the spar at the center hinge.

Another example how having a license doesn't seem to eliminate the stupid things people do.
 
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