lee292

My Feedback: (9)

Last Sunday I crashed my Sportsman Aviation Waco 60 on takeoff trying to jerk it into the air instead of going off the runway. The plane snapped and did a half cartwheel, ripping the landing gear off, cracking the cowl, and breaking both wings at the dihedral braces. I've fixed wings broken in various places, but never at the dihedral brace itself. What's the best approach? Also, I think the Waco was covered in Ultracote. What's the red called?

tangerine-jack

Damage like that is only due to poor construction. The only thing you can do is to uncover the wings, reconstruct the center joint with new ply braces epoxied in place and give the entire center section a fiberglass cloth/epoxy reinforcing. It's a sucky job and you're going to hate it, but it's the only way to ensure you never have another wing failure like that.

This is exactly why I don't care for ARF's much. I'd rather scratchbuild my planes, that way I know for certain how strong it is. Was this WACO a US built kit or one of the Chinese imports? Maybe you can get warranty on it?

Johnnie Red

How can you get warranty on something that you break yourself?????
That sounds a little iresponsible!!!!!!
If you crash your car on the nearest tree you claim warranty on it????
Johnnie

MEINSHNAKE

johnnie i don't think you understood but this damage is caused by building malfunction, and since this is the factories fault it would fit under warranty... sorry that happened, very interesting damage indeed.

lee292

My Feedback: (9)

Tangerine Jack, you're right about the poor construction. The dihedral braces aren't made of very substantial material. It's a middle layer of cheap wood of some kind with a second layer of something else set cross grain on the outside sort of like the ply that cabinet makers use.

I can probably forget about the warranty part. The Waco was discontinued about two years ago, and Sportsman Aviation planes are to the best of my knowledge made in China.

I was afraid you'd say that. I agree it's a really sucky job to remove the covering, tear into the wing, replace the dihedral joints and then 'glass it so it won't break. Been there, done that. I see a complete recovering and repainting job in my future unless I can find covering and paint that matches the rest of the plane.

gboulton

My Feedback: (15)

I'm not really sure how breaking spar doublers, dihedral braces, or other parts of the wing is "poor construction" when the plane snapped into the ground and cartwheeled. Seems to me that if you beat the living daylights out of the wing, it's probably going to break.

To be brutally honest, if it DIDN'T break in such a situation, it was probably built too heavy!

=================

lee92,

In either case (unless you choose to check on the warranty idea), as jack suggested, the first step is certainly to pull the wing halves apart, and remove the covering. (Afraid I can't find which covering matches just yet, but will keep looking)

My own suggestion from there would be to take a couple of good pictures of that joint and post them here before going any further. That would give the builders running around a better chance to see exactly how the wing was originally construction, what kind of wood and room you're working with, and then make suggestions for a repair. It's tough to give any details without seeing exactly what's going on.

One thing to be aware of up front is, as you've already seen, there will be several differing points of view. Some of us obsess about weight, others about strength, still others about particular materials or methods. It'll be up to you to decide which suits you best.

Anywho, get us some pictures and I'm sure you'll find lots of good suggestions.

tangerine-jack

Not really, if I crashed the car because of faulty brakes or suspension, then yes, it would be the manufacturer responsibility. If I was drinking when it happened that is another story alltogether.

I can't see the damage exactly, but if you notice the top wing it is a clean snap in the center, with the wing tips still in good shape. A proper strong built wing will damage from the outside in, with the center section being the last to go. I understand the pilot was in error, but the clean breaks at the wings and landing gear mount cause me a lot of concern. I agree that we need some better photos of the structure to be certain what is wrong and how to fix it properly. I like to build light, but I don't worry about weight in areas where strength is an issue such as the firewall, wing center and landing gear blocks.

You could always send it to me and I will fix it here in Iraq and make sure it flys well before sending it back!

More importantly, what do I have to do to get the plane you have on the back wall??? I love it! I want it!

mcadamsp

My Feedback: (1)

Lee
I was not sure if there were any more Sportsman WACO left.

If you are interested I have both halves of the top wing including the ailerons and CA hinges, no dihedral brace. They are sitting in my workshop gathering dust if you want them. As for trying to get any help good luck. When I decided to put a G-20 on mine I wanted a new cowl, they would not even talk to me.


Shoot me an email and we can talk about it.

[email protected]
www.fly-bcma.com

Paul

daveopam

My Feedback: (9)

Seams to me many kits in the past I have built did not use a dihedral brace. (SuperSportster,Ultra Sport,Goldburg Ult) Why not join the wings like they do. The center of both wings are sheeted and then glassed. In the case of the two Great Planes kits each wing has a rib at the center with half of the required dihedral angle built in. The wing halves are then epoxied together and the joint fibergalssed with 3" cloth. In the case of the Goldberg the wings are built as one piece but there is only a small triangle shaped ply block joining the two halves. I would think one of these solutions would be better than trying to dig out the pieces of the old brace. If the brace was epoxied in correctly the wings are going to take a lot more dammage trying to get the old brace out.

David

aerowoof

when a plane cartwheels,something is going to have to break,it could be where this one broke or it could have been worsr by splintering the fuselage where the wing mounts.looks like he got off easy.

lee292

My Feedback: (9)

I agree that if you cartwheel a plane, something's gonna break. I'm just really perplexed as to how both dihedral braces snapped almost as if the wing was sawed in two! Here are photos of the wings after I took them off and of the cowl that was cracked. The landing gear plate is intact; it just left some ragged holes where the wood screws holding the landing gear ripped out. I'll drill those out and glue in some 1/4" dowel, re-drill and put my gear back on. It's better than having the gear plate ripped out. That would be a major fix in this plane.

longflyer

you can find the covering at several places and you should be able to match the covering excactly. when i strained my citabra thru a tree, i found the same coveing and you cannot see where it was damged.
john

lee292

My Feedback: (9)

McAdam, thanks for your offer, but I think my wings will be fine provided I can remove the old braces and put new ones in made of better stuff, either hardwood or 1/4" aircraft ply. I'm sure you're right about Sportsman or Global not having any more replacement parts. I think my cowl's fixable with a fiberglass patch, a little Bondo and some paint. I think I saw you can get a generic cowl that will fit the Waco from either Fiberglass Specialties or Stan's Fiber Tech for about $30. Looks like the same thing, just doesn't have the scoop and exhaust outlets.

Davopam, I know all about the fiberglass wrap technique. One of the first planes I built was a Hobby Lobby Telemaster 40 that didn't have dihedral braces at all, and the wing survived all kinds of abuse. Will probably do that on the Waco if the dihedral braces are too hard to remove. I may do it anyway as insurance.

Johnnie Red

Hey Lee,

Also use epoxy 30 minutes at list!!! If you use 5minutes is not going to bond correct.
Also try to use this time a stripe of fiberglass cloth in the outer joint of both wings. Then sand it and you start the covering business.
BR
Johnnie

lee292

My Feedback: (9)

Will do! I might try drilling a couple of holes in the broken wing joiners and inserting some 1/4" dowels and then doing a fiberglass wrap, since I have some fiberglass and some epoxy formulated for 'glassing. I'm going to have to do it anyway to fix the cowl. I have found wings with glassed center sections to be very strong!

aerowoof

what bothers me is that there apperas to be no glue on the two ribs at the break.if this was an arf the wing joiner would be glued into boxes between the spars,it looks like the joiner failed

lee292

My Feedback: (9)

That's exactly what happened. The joiners failed. I did glue the wing halves together, using 30 minute epoxy. If you look closely at the pictures, either the third or fourth from the left, you can see that the ply delaminated in a spot. Looking back, I should have trimmed the joiners so the wing halves would butt together a bit tighter, but the joiners already had glue on them before I could cut/sand them to make them shorter. There may have been 1/32" or less gap between the wing sections that may have caused the joiners to fail. Like I said in an earlier post, these joiners look like somebody took a saw and cut them they broke so cleanly. ARFs are very convenient, but if this was a BIY, I would have used clamps to hold the canter ribs together and I would have definitely used aircraft ply in the joiners. Will start repairs in another week or two.

multicasting

Well then, I guess it would be another story altogether. Claim warrenty on damaged caused by a crash? Please... You are funny. These planes are built as cheaply as possible and still be able to get into the air. They do this because that is what the free market demands.

Almost all major distributers cheaply made ARFs will fly per directions. When you buy a cheap ARF, you need to beef it up a little if you want it to be tough. Crash damage is a far cry from something like the firewall coming out of the H9 Corsair, or the Advance 40 empenage failures. Both of which, by the way, are from the more expensive and better regarded Hanger Nine manufacturer. Meanwhile, my CMPro Corsair suffered several "scale" landings (see bad carrier landings from WWII.) About the only thing I have had to do is touch up the paint.

Bob

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8Bim7-hZfg <--- those landings I spoke of.

lee292

My Feedback: (9)

Also, notice that the Waco 60 was discontinued after a relatively short time on the market. I hope the Cox ARF version of the old Pica Waco is better! I always wanted one of the Pica 1/6 Wacos but alas, they went out of business before I got one.

lee292

My Feedback: (9)

I finally got started on the fix! The first issue was how to replace the broken wing joiner in the top wing. I tried drilling it out with a Dremel and a spiral cutter bit but only made a mess. Next strategy... break out the trusty band saw and cut a couple of slots in the wing on either side of the broken joiners. Alas, I trashed one side of the joiner box with the spiral cutter, but it shouldn't be a big deal to replace it with a piece of leftover lite ply. I'll cut a new joiner out of 1/4" aircraft ply and shim it up with balsa. Once the wing halves are together, I'll wrap the joint with fiberglass.

lee292

My Feedback: (9)

BTW, Ultracote True Red is a match!