I was discussing an in-flight failure at the field with a fellow pilot in which the epoxy bond between push-rod tube to the fuse failed during a high-speed maneuver. He was able to recover his plane. I have to believe this type of failure is quite common with planes that have lots of hours.


In thinking about this, I wondered how someone could check all glued connections during pre-flight. I suppose you could check tension by gently prying a screwdriver up against the connection. If something is to fail, then better while the plane is on the ground.

In discussing this with someone at work, the idea of using a tension meter (with springs) could provide a robust means of accurately determining bond strength. If you know how much tension any given connection is required, you can measure for it, hopefully in a non-destructive way. Maybe it is not possible to know what the exact numbers, but perhaps general guidelines based on wing loading, or some other method. Or maybe I am over-killing this issue, and this degree of checking is not required.

I didn’t find anything in Google, but I have to believe someone has already established something similar that works.

Any thoughts on this?