What a great day last Saturday was.....I flew my NexStar a couple of times with my instructor. Took off about 5 or 6 times (ugly, but without incident). I was really cookin, and felt like I was coming along great.

I then took the wing off, and began cleaning the fuel off of the fuselage. I was using one of those "Box of Rags" from Home Depot, and I had it on the stand with the fuselage. The fuse bobbled on the stand and my elbow pushed the box of rags off of the stand. Wanna take a guess where is landed?

That's right folks....the corner of the box punched right through the Monokote on the wing laying on the ground next to me! I thought I was going to be sick. 6 flights without issue, and a stupid box of rags is my first aircraft damage! Everyone else at the club just looked at it as "it is one of those things that happens", but I felt like a new car owner who just got his first door ding.

My instructor told me to put a piece of clear packing tape over the tear for now, and we are going to patch it up later.

I think the lesson learned here is when you are done cleaning your wing...put it back in the car out of harms way. I always joked that one day I was going to step on it, but I never thought that some random item could fall off the stand and hit it. I am just glad it wasn't something really heavy (like the starter or the fuel jug).