Back during the early part of the summer, I had an incident with the Elan in which I smacked a runway light. The resulting damage was contained to the fuselage and left boom. If a new fuse and boom are purchased, I am looking right at $800.00, so I'm going to try and defray the cost somewhat by reworking the fuse. If it turns out to my liking, I'll purchase a new left boom.

The first priority was to examine the extent of the damage and decide how I was going to approach the repair. After pondering for awhile, I decided the best approach was to cut openings in the top section of the fuselage to access the formers and landing gear blocks which were also torn loose.

With dremel in hand, I proceeded to cut out a large hatch to expose the underlying structure. I will now be able to clean up all old glue joints, replace the broken formers, repair the gear blocks, and re-glue the bottom skin to the formers. When that is all said and done, I will hysol the skin that I cut out back in, glass,fill & blend all seam lines. That's the plan anyway!