Well I did something really dumb today. Took off and forgot to plug in the ailerons. I know....I know...... Anyway, my plane landed in a tree and received some punctures in the wings and horizontal stab. I guess Im going to have to have a go at covering. My question is: Do I need to remove the horizontal stab and the rudder, ailerons etc to do this? It would really be much easier if I could just recover and leave the ailerons, rudder, and elevator attached. None of those were damaged. Im not expecting it to be perfect. Please let me know. Any tips my first attempt at covering would be appreciated also. What type should use? etc. Thanks

I dont think :spinnyeye: you need to take any thing off- Unless there are bare spots in places you cant reach pirate:
OR- You could buy a whole new plane :greedy:

Just cut repair patches about 1/2" to 1" bigger then the tear and apply with covering iron. Tack one side first and pull tight (if safely possible) as you tack the rest of the patch. Then run the iron over the patch to complete the process. If it gets to soft, and starts to stretch, let it cool and repeat.

You don't need to strip the whole wing or V-Stab. As what type to use, whatever matches your current covering color, TowerCote is inexpensive or check you LHS.

unless some of the structure is damaged you probably don't need to remove anything to do a little cosmetic repair.I use Ultracote because it will stick at a lower temp. than most. You can cut patches to go over the rips and tears or just go over the wounds with a different pattern or color scheme.

Make sure that you get fuel off where you are repairing so you will get a good bound of repairs . Trim any ragged parts to be repaired, make sure that you use compatible covering material.

A couple other tips I've seen/read:

If you're just using a small patch, cut it with rounded corners. They'll be less likely to lift in flight and when cleaning.

If the tear is long enough where you think a small patch wouldn't work well, only cut the covering from the opening that the cut is in. In other words, cut to the closest frame member all around. This makes it easier when you're ironing on the patch as it'll have wood underneath the iron.

Ditto on the rounded corners (or at least snip the corners off so you have 2-45* angles instead of 1-90* angle)

And also... Don't be nervous! This is easy.

If you don't care how it looks, clear packing tape makes a quick repair until you can fix it with covering.

Khlash99 Where do you fly here in San Antonio?

Sorry for the off topic question.

Axeman

email me at [email protected] and I'll tell you all about the sites I fly at. See ya

If you hit a tree I would check for any structural damage before recovering would not want to lose your tail when you are flying