Saturday, December 4, 2010

Wing Spar doublers - Rans Manual Error #35

Working on G-MWEP with Dave Wood (PFA inspector) and owner Ed Wallington.
We have finished one wing replacing the front spar and lift struts. The other wing we thought was ok but removed the fabric for a quick check. We have found that the tip bow needs replacing.
We also found that the wing had at some time been trashed and rebuilt , we think you did not do this
work as there are no log book entries to cover it. The work appears to be O.K. except
that the spar doublers are different locations and lengths from the other
wing !!
We consulted the build book and the rebuilt wing conforms to the Rans
spec. The spars come from Rans with the doublers already installed so we
decided to measure all the wings we could find to see what was going on. We
have come to the conclusion that the Rans build book is incorrect , but we
need confirmation of this. The implications of the book being correct are
very serious as the entire fleet would have to be checked and possibly
altered.
I will try to list the differences as simply as possible.

[It's a puzzle to me. I took tape measure this afternoon and felt through the fabric along both wings, fore and aft spars, but couldn't detect any external thickening at the load areas mentioned. Nor did I feel any rivets that may have signified an internal sleeve location. Perhaps there was a difference between models with the heavier aerofoil lift struts with the single lower fus. fixing pin, though quite why that should be any reason, I don't know.]
Front spar
Root------------------------- 2inch doubler no problem here
Jury strut attach-------------24inch doubler called for--no doublers found
Lift strut attach--------------30inch doubler called for--12 inch doubler
found
Wing spar extension---------No spec -------------12inch found.
Rear spar
root---------------------9.5 inch called for-----none found
Jury strut attach---------24 inch called for-----none found
Lift strut attach----------30 inch called for-----12inch found
Wing spar extension------No spec--------------9.5 inch found.

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