New QF maintenance procedures outed

[thewinchester]

Said with tongue in cheek of course

From the Army Paratrooper forums comes a tale of a light aircraft pilot who's craft and its fabric skin was heavily attacked by a bear whilst on an Alaskan fishing trip. And how does the pilot fix the problem you ask...

Duct tape... I'll let CNET continue the story (photos of plane, before and after, at link as well):

Duct tape use 4,526: Repair plane after bear destroys it
by Matt Hickey, CNET Crave Blog
January 13, 2010 5:22 PM PST

Any geek worth his (or her) weight in salt will tell you that one of the most necessary tools for ad hoc repairs is duct tape. In fact, the one thing geeks don't use it for is to tape ducts. I've known people who have used duct tape to mount a hard drive, weather-proof a camera, build a cantenna, make ice skates, and affix a flash defuser for a camera.

But nothing my super-nerd friends have done compares with the story that comes to us via forums of ArmyParatrooper.org, where user lz_NorthPole shares this tale from the Alaskan wilderness.

A fisherman chartered a small plane to fly into the Alaskan backcountry for some fishing. The fisherman unwisely left fresh bait in the plane, which attracted a bear--this being bear country and all--and the animal then tore the airplane apart. The image you see above is the trashed plane.

But the charter pilot supposedly was a bad-cough. And like a bad-cough he wouldn't just let a bear get away with tearing up his airplane. No, this bad-cough--who must be a geek--called another pilot to ferry in new tires, sheet plastic, and three cases of duct tape.

lz_NorthPole claims the pilot applied the materials, flew the thing home, and arrived safely. I fervently hope he is not playing an early April Fools' joke, because this is the best use of duct tape I've seen in a long time.

 

[samh004]

I’d have to see it in the air

 

[Mal]

Yet another internet hoax I wonder?

Story seems a little fishy to me, and once again it's been spread via email ...

But still good fun!

 

[thewinchester]

Having been someone who's seen the wonders of Duct Tape thanks to Jamie and Adam from the Mythbusters, I'd give this story some credence. The thing I'm still wondering is how they managed to get so much of the stuff to repair the fabric skin of the plane.

For those who don't click on the video link above, here's what they managed to do with the stuff:

• build a working canon,
• attached a car to a crane using duct tape and lifted it at least 2m off the ground, and my personal favourite
• built a working, floating and almost seaworthy boat using duct tape.

Yes, they're a bunch of guys with too much time and money on their hands.

 

[harvyk]

It would probably fly as the wings, and the tail is still in one piece. It probably wouldn't have flown overly well as the ripples in the tape would have done funny things to the air movement, that said at the speeds which that plane would have flown at it probably wouldn't have mattered that much, plus the tape doesn't look to be holding anything structual together (if you look at the first photo, the frame of the plane seems to be intact)...

All that said, I personally wouldn't have been overly comfortable flying home in the thing, assuming this is not a hoax... (Can't find anything on the usual hoax websites...)

 

[2muchplastic]

• build a working canon,

Errr, thewinchester, are you sure about that? That would be quite an impressive feat, even for the Mythbusters team.

:mrgreen:

 

[drewbles]

It's not actually duct-tape. It's an industry tape known as 'speed tape' that's used to ferry a/c to point of being repaired.

It looks a lot like duct/gaffa though

 

[oz_mark]

It's not actually duct-tape. It's an industry tape known as 'speed tape' that's used to ferry a/c to point of being repaired.

You mean it's expensive duct tape

 

[drewbles]

You mean it's expensive duct tape

shhh. you'll cost repairers income

 

[straitman]

It's not actually duct-tape. It's an industry tape known as 'speed tape' that's used to ferry a/c to point of being repaired.

It looks a lot like duct/gaffa though

Another name is 100 mile per hour tape.

 

[NM]

Another name is 100 mile per hour tape.

or 600 mile per hour tape when used to repair a 737