Hobbico Avistar.

came down nose wheel hard. Ripped the firewall out. the wing was fine except teh rubber band dug into the leading edge and broke out about a 2 inch section.

as far as repairs. Can I jstu peice together some of it and fiberglass the entire center section to beef it up? or do I need to go buy new balsa to build up the leading edge liek new?

My experience indicates that this is not the last time you will crash. Therefore I tend to advocate patching until the airplane self-destructs of vanishes forever into the deep woods.

Bill

Depends on whats easier... if the pieces go back together fairly easy then just piece it back together with some thin CA and glass over it for added strength. If the woods hard to piece back together then it may be easier to just cut out the bad spot and scab in some new wood... if you do this I wouldn't worry about glassing it.

For the fire wall it's about the same... sometimes it's just easier to cut new pieces of wood than trying to glue back the splintered wood... if it goes back together fairly easy then glue it back in place with EPOXY... take care to not get a build up of epoxy on the back side(fuel tank side) of the fire wall... once the fire wall is back in place make sure you have a good wood to wood gluing surface in the corners between the fire wall and fuse... cut some 1/4 inch Triangle stock to fit and EPOXY it in... Of course if you already have intact triangle stock in place then skip this step.

John