By Lisa Turner, EAA Lifetime 509911
This piece originally ran in Lisa’s Airworthy column in the October 2021 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.
“Come on,” Angie said, rolling the hangar door open. “It’s a perfect flying day.”
Jenna came in with a cooler and a beach bag.
“I’m ready,” she said. “Let’s go to Marathon. We’ll fly over the beach on the way down and wave at people.”
Angie laughed. “Yeah. The cars will be going faster than us.”
“But we’re a straight line to the Keys, and we don’t have to stop for traffic lights.”
They pulled the 1946 cream and red Piper J-5 Cruiser out into the bright sunlight. In Florida, the summer days begin like a light switch. As soon as the sun broke the horizon, the heat was full-on.
“Whew, it’s hot and humid already,” Angie said, fanning her face.
They both did the preflight and loaded the lunch bag and cooler.
“This airplane has been in your family forever it seems. It looks pretty good,” Jenna said.
“Yes, my grandfather gave it to my dad, and my dad just gave it to me. It needed a complete cover job last year. Dad was horrified at the prices he was getting for cover and didn’t feel confident doing it himself. One of his friends, a retired car mechanic, looked at it and said, ‘How hard could this be?’ So, Dad gave it to him to cover.”
As Angie was talking, Jenna noticed several large wrinkles at the wingtip. Then she looked more closely at the reinforcing tapes and saw that they had been applied over, not under, the lacing. I better not say anything, she thought.
They took off to the east, flying over the beach. The ocean was calm — a blue mirror with gentle undulating waves rolling up on the shore. Beachgoers dotted the broad expanse of glistening sand.
“Fantastic,” Jenna said.
“I’ll say,” Angie said from the front.
In the next moment, they heard a sharp “thunk” noise and the door popped open. It startled Angie. Panicking, she grabbed the handle and pulled the door to her. There was something wrong. It was as if the door frame opening had changed. A gap had opened up between the door and the trim. She could not get the door to close. The wind whistled around the opening.
Jenna shouted, “Angie, give me the airplane so you can fool with the door. We’re going to end up landing on the beach.”
Jenna took the controls and climbed. “Let’s go back and see why the door won’t close.”
“Okay,” Angie said, still fiddling with the door. “It looks like something broke.”
* *
Readers love the stories of old airplanes being restored to flying condition. The beloved machines become family members. We become invested in the process and delight in the success of conveying the past into the future.
The heart-warming stories told in EAA Sport Aviation illustrate the complexity of these projects. In hearing about the arduous process these builders went through in their restorations — many years of hard work — we hear the same warnings. It goes something like, “If I had not …” and, “It’s a good thing I …”
It is no surprise, then, when I say that nearly every single restoration I have participated in has contained at least one critical flaw, if not multiple critical flaws, that could easily have been missed. These are things that could cause a variety of ground and in-flight failures.
The one big thing? Hidden damage that isn’t caught and corrected. This can take the form of spar cracks, tubing corrosion, incorrect repairs performed on composites, incorrect repairs of wood structure, fabric system mismatches and wrong procedures, and hardware attachments, especially on cables. Some of these items would never be found on a cursory inspection or an annual. They are hidden underneath attach points, trim, or covered up in some other way.
Hidden damage comes into play when an aircraft is not being fully restored. Not identifying damage is almost nonexistent on complete restorations because the aircraft is completely disassembled and every inch of the structure is examined. Every part and every component is inspected.
What should you do if you’re making repairs to the aircraft without full disassembly or you’re doing a cover job? Evaluate what you have and where you want to end up. How old is the airplane? What level of maintenance has it had? Are logbooks thorough and complete? Have airworthiness directives and service bulletins been complied with? Do you have the manuals and all of the documentation that should be with the airplane? These are critical clues to condition, and tell you how far you should go in identifying hidden damage that could bite you later.
In the case of the Cruiser in the story, the maintenance was spotty, some of the documentation had been lost, and the person who performed the fabric cover job was not qualified. What’s interesting is that the person doing the cover job didn’t realize what a service bulletin was, or that a 337 was required to return the aircraft to service. Fabric re-covering is considered a major repair (or a major alteration if you switch to another fabric system from the one the manufacturer used), so FAA Form 337 is required.
When making the decision to repair or restore, there are some questions you can ask to help judge which way to go.
- Are you covering the airplane only? Or are you doing a full restoration? Realize that a cover job can turn into a full restoration depending on what you discover. Be mentally prepared for this.
- Age of the aircraft. The older the aircraft, the more likely deterioration will be found, and the more important it is to check all ADs and service bulletins. If you think a service bulletin does not apply due to the serial number being out of range, double-check it anyway. Sometimes parts from another airplane where the SB does apply are installed.
- Storage conditions. An aircraft stored outside in Arizona will weather better than an aircraft outside on the coast of Florida. Wear and tear and weather can dramatically shorten the life of components.
- Maintenance record. How well was the aircraft maintained and cared for? Are the logs complete? On one restoration entering our shop, we asked for the documentation for the last cover job, along with the 337s. We got a strange look from the owner, who said, “The what?” When we looked in the logs, there was no record of any cover job.
- Your mission. There is always a risk that you will not have gone deep enough on the inspection during repairs. Try to find out what areas of the airplane have been hidden for a long time. These areas need to be inspected for condition. The service bulletins will be helpful here.
- Work with a pro. If you are working on the aircraft with supervision from an A&P mechanic, make sure they see everything. They don’t have to be there all the time watching you, but you should make sure they are inspecting all the work.
- If you send the airplane to an individual or a shop, make sure they are qualified. Talk to customers and ask questions. When we begin a repair or a restoration, we always begin the discussion with a caveat: We don’t know what we are going to find. As we disassemble the aircraft, taking pictures along the way, we let the owner know what we find. Invariably, we find some surprises.
The one big question to ask: “What could be hidden?”
When we read the amazing stories in EAA Sport Aviation about outstanding restorations, we realize that these people followed a system of best practices. When we hear, “If I had not …” and, “It’s a good thing I …” we know they opted for further inspection, further disassembly, and not second-guessing condition. They found the hidden flaws and corrected them. These are restorations to be proud of and in a condition for safe flight.
* *
“Let’s try this again,” Angie said.
It was almost exactly one year later. The J-5 had been in the shop for the year, being completely restored.
“I wasn’t sure you were ever going to get it back,” Jenna said. “We were lucky that day with the frame failure.”
“Yes, we were. And to find out that the frame itself actually failed from corrosion really surprised me. The damage was completely hidden under the door trim. On top of that, no reinforcing tapes had been applied under the rib lacing on the cover. Over time, that could have induced fabric failure, too. We took it to a professional shop, and we were surprised at what they found. Turns out the person that covered it didn’t know anything about the service bulletins. There’s a specific one for that area of the frame where door trim goes and hides what’s underneath it. He meant well, but it’s one of those ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ things.”
“All’s well that ends well,” Jenna said. “But some big lessons learned.”
Lisa Turner, EAA Lifetime 509911, is a manufacturing engineer, A&P, EAA technical counselor and flight advisor, and former DAR. She built and flew a Pulsar XP and Kolb Mark III, and is researching her next homebuilt project. Lisa’s third book, Dream Take Flight, details her Pulsar flying adventures and life lessons. Write Lisa at Lisa@DreamTakeFlight.com and learn more at DreamTakeFlight.com.