When is it time to recover my Taylorcraft

[N95334]

Dear Tribe,
After reading Mark's and Doc's Thread "56T The Journey Begins" it got me thinking about my own Taylorcraft N95334. When do I need to recover? With the fabric it has on it now (Stitts) the cover can last forever in my life time. The best I can figure out with the log books and a date written inside on the fabric it was last covered in 1966. When I bought her 2005 I looked inside with a bore scope at the spars and other internal parts and all looked well to me and the AI. But you know you can't see everything like the front of the front spar and the rear of the rear spar etc. I don’t see any obvious signs like wood rot or rusted tubing. If I and others don't self police our selves into covering at an appropriate time the FAA will get involved one day. But what is an appropriate time? I can see it now AD's on all Taylorcrafts, Champs, Cubs etc. mandatory recover every 20 years regardless of condition. AD's are written in blood mostly and I don't want to be the one causing this one.
So my intensions on this Thread are for all of you to express your opinion on this matter. To get a brain storming idea session going. To bring up points I have not thought of considering.

[jim cooper]

Re: When is it time to recover my Taylorcraft

If I had bought that airplane in 2005, and it had been covered in 1966, I would have immed. recovered the wings, looking around carefully and having AI look carefully. Only my humble opinion. ( I would have done this regardless of what logs said.) JC

[Larry Lyons]

Re: When is it time to recover my Taylorcraft

For what it is worth we recovered Tim Mickel's T at 27 years, his call. Although we did not get any nasty surprises it was time. Repainted the fusalage, refinished the spars, put in all new control cables, etc. He was also the owner who recovered her back in the late 70's and she has been hangered 100% of the time. Larry

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: When is it time to recover my Taylorcraft

A WHOLE lot depends on where it was kept, and how. Both the climate and if it was in a hangar or outside.
I live in the south east corner of Virginia on the Atlantic and the Chesapeake Bay. My plane spent almost all of it's life in a hangar, but I am a little worried about the climate here. When the 45 is ready to fly the covers will come off the 41. I wasn't happy with the repaint job I did on the 41 anyway.
Bottom line is, when I repainted I did a VERY careful inspection through every hole available, including a few I made to see inside hidden areas.
The problem is the covering materials will WAY outlast the materials underneath. Punch the lower longerons in the tail for rust. Check every access cover and any hole you can get a borescope into. If you see ANYTHING, you can bet there is more hidden.
Hard decision to make. If it was kept outside or I found ANY problem, I would pull the covering on the wings, followed by the whole plane if I wasn't happy with what I saw in the wings. Progressive inspect and dig deeper.
Hank

[fearofpavement]

Re: When is it time to recover my Taylorcraft

I don't think a time to recover should ever be based on calendar time. Doing that would be like saying how often you should change the tires. So much of fabric life depends on how the aircraft is stored and the things that preserve fabric also keep the unseen things from deteriorating as well. There are usually enough places to peer into the inside of a fabric covered aircraft to get a general idea of the condition of things. Of course, not everything can be seen but there will be enough clues if there are problems. And in many cases there are herald signs that will get the attention of the operator (such as a tail cluster failure) before a catastrophic failure occurs. The key is adequate inspection, not "time life" requirements. I hope it doesn't get to the point where each of the items on appendix D will be an AD which won't mean much at that point either if someone is going to pencil whip the AD's like some annuals get accomplished. If someone is concerned about the condition of the plane under the fabric let your mechanic know your concern and have him/her take an extra detailed look to alay or confirm those concerns. Or look yourself. If you are uncomfortable with the amount of calendar time on your plane, then feel free to peel it off and recover but please don't make me peel mine if I think it's fine...

[Forrest Barber]

Re: When is it time to recover my Taylorcraft

My ship N43533 that was sold to Joel Nelson here in Alliance was covered wings 1969 fuselage 1972 , IT was time . THE only way to completely inspect the wings and lower fuselage longerons is re cover. we have found , so far, that she is quite clean , hangered of course. Wings will be stripped soon, ailerons were like brand new.

[magman]

Re: When is it time to recover my Taylorcraft

There are a lot of relatively inexpensive Borescopes available today.

The Inspection holes on the aircraft should be viewed as the MINIMUM.

You can add holes & cut access ports for the "scope" to give some insight.

Ercoupes & Aeroncas have AD's that require ADDING 16 Insp. Holes to

EACH wing.


Some of the PA-25 Spray guys would remove the lower fuselage fabric every

year to check for longeron rust.


All this is still easier than a complete recover.

It would be interesting to compile data on discrepancies that actually affect

airworthiness found during a cover that would NOT have been found with the

above techniques.

[N95334]

Re: When is it time to recover my Taylorcraft

Forrest, you said "Joel Nelson here in Alliance was covered wings 1969 fuselage 1972 , IT was time ."
Then you say so far found all clean. Please keep us advised what you find.
Thanks.

[Forrest Barber]

Re: When is it time to recover my Taylorcraft

left wing clean , needs repair to trailing edge that we knew about , single piece spars look good so far. I felt that it was time doing a nice loop and aileron roll last year, will let you know . Maybe Doc Nelson can do this himself??

[crispy critter]

Re: When is it time to recover my Taylorcraft

The last tcraft I recovered for someone else was last recovered in 1970 with ceconite or stits(can't remember which). It flew in and everything looked ok from the outside with the exception of some peeling paint(it had been repainted with auto paint in the late 80's and was the main reason for the decision to recover). Anyway,the fabric was still great and most everything you could see from the inspection panels and obvious places was in pretty good shape however once it was taken apart we started finding things that was really scary! Both spars on the right wing was cracked-one crack at the butt of the rear spar and one near the tip of the main. There was NO mention of damage history anywhere in the logs. The rear spar on the left wing was badly damaged from what appeared to be a fuel leak in the wing tank which had been unhooked and marked in-op for years. We also found several corroded bolts & hardware,some bolts had to be cut out because they were stuck so badly they would not move....one gear leg bolt was almost sheared in the middle(over halfway)! Before removing the fabric you could look back in the aft of the fuslage on the inside and it looked pretty good with a good layer of Zinc and no obvious signs of rust,but once the fabirc was removed we found the lower longerons to be full of pinholes under where the fabric was glued and there was not obvious bubbles or anything,this was mostly all in the tail section area. This airplane was in annual when we started the recover and the only reason for deciding to recover was peeling paint. This airplane was a flight hazard and a ticking timebomb but looked ok from all areas of inspection.
In another example I bought a t-craft project once that was lightly damaged in a landing incident and had last been recovered with Irish Linen(cotten) in the early 1960's. It was flying until 2002. I figured when I bought it that it was going to need a complete rebuild and I knew I would find a lot of problems due to rust,rotting wood,etc....but once I got it home and uncovered I found that all the original tubing was like new,the original spars still had nice shinny varnish on them and the entire airplane was in exceptional condition.
Both planes had average times and had flown on average of an hour or so per month(give or take). The first one had been threw several different owners and locations since it was last recovered in 1970. The other had been with the same owner since the early to mid 1960's. So even though you think everything is still fine it may not be,and just because you expect to find the worst doesn't really mean you will. It has a lot to do with how the airplane has been flown,stored,and maintained. Also where it has been stored and how well the airplane was preped & protected during the last rebuild. In my humble opinion any fabric airplane today with 30 year old fabric on it is flying on borrowed time. It may look like new when you uncover it and it may not.

[Larry Lyons]

Re: When is it time to recover my Taylorcraft

One thing jumps out at me here. One owner versus various owners. My experience with Tim's T-Craft was it was a one owner. We did not find anything scary but as I said there was general wear and tear, lack of lubrication, zink needed to be touched up, just little stuff that by addressing them now we have given this plane and its owner a lot more happy years of flying. Mine is a 41 that sat for 33 years in a dirt floor hanger so although I have found plenty of things wrong there was nothing hid that was caused by the previous owner as John had owned the plane since back in the 50's up to when I bought it. It had been recovered once during this time frame by him. Again a one owner.
Larry