quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:


Yep. pretty sure it's not tape. It looks as if it were taped off and B-1/2 was applied, smoothed out and the tape removed. Which would be an acceptable application after a repair until depot or home station repairs can be accomplished.

Speed tape is generally shiny.

B 1/2 is a time description for a number of different fuel and structural sealants; it's a thickened version of A 1/2, the 1/2 meaning the working time before curing begins. It's primarily used for sealing a pressure vessel or a fuel cell, depending on the formula. B 1/2 applies to numerous sealants. They aren't used to hold parts on, however, and are nothing more than rubberized polymers.

Tape isn't used to hold a winglet on. While the chief function of a winglet is to reduce lost lift around a wingtip, reduce vortices and thus drag, there is still a significant load imposed on the winglet in flight, and most contribute not only to drag reduction, but also to lift in two primary ways. If tape were used to address structural damage, it would be a very serious breach of ethics and an illegal repair, as well as dangerous, and wouldn't prevent further structural damage or prevent further failure of the part.

Winglets are generally fiberglass or carbon fiber. The surface is smoothed with gel coat, an epoxy glazing outside the structural fibers, which is finished to give it a smooth, aerodynamic laminar surface. Any paint finish is then applied above that. The appearance in the picture is of missing paint and possibly damaged gel coat in the glass parts, which isn't that uncommon due to flexing or possibly some slight surface damage. In some cases, missing gel coating, pitting, etc, can be fixed with fillers (think bondo), as it's non-structural, and the darker appearance under the paint indicates that may be the case. The picture isn't clear enough to tell. This kind of work is typical on wingtips or winglets, radomes, etc.

I used the shit on many airframe repairs from sealing windscreens, canopy bows and smoothing canopy rail to windscreen transitions, on various formers as well as anti-vibe patches.

A lot of things.

You can say all you want,but you don't always know what your talking about.


I have worked on more than a dozen airframes.

All 5 USAF F-4 MDS, all 5 F-15 MDS. F-16, F-5, T-38,T-37, A10, A-7D, F-111A/D UH-1N and T-39. ( and a few others)

As Crew Cief, Line Chief, Areo Repair/Reclamation, and AC-130E/H I/O.

Been retired since Dec. 1992, so some things have changed, but a lot has not. I've spent some time around the F-35 A/B/C at Eglin.

I may not know everything, but I know what I have accomplished. And yeah, what I said about the repairs are not only possible, but likely probable.

(Typed from a tiny phone while traveling.. )

Sealant is used for sealing in and sealing out. Not for placing over the surface of a cracked or damaged winglet, any more than tape.

I've been using it for over 30 years, too.

There's no such compound as "B1/2" incidentally. There are numerous sealants with B1/2 properties, but no "B1/2."

I understand what you're trying to say, though I wouldn't hold up military maintenance as the holy grail or even a good standard in many cases. It can be sketchy. If you came from a USAF background, you came from a specialized background too (unlike the USN, where maintainers generally have a more rounded understanding of the aircraft and systems). That's quite different from a civilian maintenance background, where one is usually responsible for a far broader scope of systems, understanding, repair, maintenance, etc. It's not a dick measuring contest, but don't try to hold up a laundry list of a few aircraft to beat someone down. I've flow more than 80 as pilot and worked on a lot more, and been a director of maintenance twice. All of that means jack shit.

The picture is too grainy to tell. There are several possibilities as to what it might be, but I very much doubt its taped on. The picture appears to be possibly some missing paint and/or gel coat, possibly some repaired area with paint lines, primer, filler, and it might have sealant on it...but that's not really an area one would normally seal, and filling with sealant in an area such as that isn't the appropriate repair. Epoxy or filler and a glass repair, yes. Again, it's not possible to tell from the picture. In my opinion, whatever the case, it would have been better to at least throw temporary paint on it before putting it in service with passengers, for this very reason. That sort of thing, even if entirely legitimate, undermines confidence.

The aircraft was a Canadair CRJ-200. I actually didn’t think it was tape literally holding the winglet on the plane, but nevertheless thought the appearance of the repair, whatever it was, was at the very least sufficiently odd-looking to ask.