Will need help... my BD-12 was affected by Milton

[taylormarc]

I am going back to Tampa today to check on my planes... sadly my taylorcraft seems to have aileron damage. I have insurance but also an A&P mechanic. Lost my car on Davis Island and now this... seems all those black swan events are happening way too much. I travel a lot and in both cases couldn't come back in time nor had people willing to help me (ex-friends now) when I asked them to check on my vehicle and plane.

Anyhow... any opinion as to what the damage may be from this?

[Hank Jarrett]

If you are really lucky the cable between ailerons was already weak and snapped. Don't hold your breath. More likely the wind was banging the ailerons up and down and the hinge fitting failed (especially since you have a later post war plane with the cast ones). They are bad for getting corrosion under the steel end caps that can't be seen till the casting is badly corroded. If that happened you dodged a bullet. If the hinges fail in flight it is a bad day. Need to see more photos when you get the ailerons off. To get an aileron sag like that the center hinge would have failed but I would do a CAREFUL inspection of all three hinges on both sides with the steel caps OFF. You also want to check out all the pulleys for chipped edges and look for stretched cables. If you are going too pull cables be sure to pull a cord into the fuselage and wings with the removed cable so you can pull the cables back in again. TRUST ME! You DO NOT want to try and get any of the cables back in a covered plane with nothing to pull them in with!

Hank

[Robert Lees]

Taylormarc:
Don't knock your friends so much.
If I were your friend, I still wouldn't have rushed out during a hurricane just to check on the damage to your aircraft (or car) that I could do nothing about.

[Scott]

Most likely single point of failure is the magnezium as Hank says. The belcrank is visable through the false spar/aileron cove.