M20K Rocket Wing Damage

[Steve W]

I'm pretty sure if they had totaled my plane it would have been auctioned right from the tie-down spot that the wrecker dropped it off in.

[Guest]

This reminds me of the other recent thread about a Mooney with a damaged wing.  Group consensus was that it was scrap.  If I recall Maxwell bought it and rebuilt it.

This one likely falls into the same group.  It’s all about time, money and skill, if the plane is rare and desirable someone can save it.

Clarence

[MB65E]

I would really pass! The wing damage is what’s visible. I’d be more concerned about what stress when through the rest of the structure. 

-Matt

[Guest tommy123]

I bought back my 182 when a tornado got it, made another $12000 but none of it was from airframe parts. A big shop can afford a rebuild like this as a project to keep the mechanics busy when business is slow.

[aviatoreb]

Depends on intrinsic Hull value too.  I remember a recent model acclaim with horrible wing damage and some other structure damage that was expertly repaired at air mods and flies today.  But there is a lot of Hull value in a 3 year old acclaim to justify 100 or 200k of repairs.

[gsxrpilot]

1 hour ago, M20Doc said:

This reminds me of the other recent thread about a Mooney with a damaged wing.  Group consensus was that it was scrap.  If I recall Maxwell bought it and rebuilt it.

This one likely falls into the same group.  It’s all about time, money and skill, if the plane is rare and desirable someone can save it.

Yep, this one could easily be brought back... and maybe even economically. Just so long as you're an A&P/AI, you already own a shop/hangar with all the required tools, jigs, etc. have the expertise so you don't have to pay for it, and be halfway retired already with some time on your hands... otherwise it's scrap.

[nels]

Is this the plane advertised here on Mooney Space and at KTCY?

[Yetti]

This one is like one that has gone underwater.  It will never be the same.  There is no way to check for all the stresses the wing and attachment points.  Someone should pull the data plate off the tail and turn it into a playground toy.   I could not see any IA signing off as airworthy EVAR/

[milotron]

9 hours ago, Hank said:

I thought the Mooney that hit a thunderstorm and landed with bent wings was 10-15 years ago in the Midwest . . . This plane is in Cali. Can't be the same one, can it?

The one I know of is in Victoria BC Canada.

[Joe Larussa]

I bought a 172 once with damage history. Owned it for 12 years, but was never at peace in my mind about it. Promised myself when I bought my Mooney I wouldn’t go down that road. My two cents.

[jlunseth]

I went cruising through the website and found a picture Cruiser posted of the wing and spar.  

The long yellow member is the spar, the heavily supported area in the middle is the wing root, so you can see that the spar is right where that longitudinal seam is behind the sight gauge in the OP’s photo, just aft of the wrinkle.  

[TNIndy]

Thanks! The picture helps me understand the wing design. Mooney's appear to have an overall better structural design than many other manufacturers. It's odd that every time I talk about buying a Mooney with the shop at the local airport he tries talking me out of it. 

[jlunseth]

Mechanics unfamiliar with Mooneys often don’t like working on them.  Everything about the systems is compact and space to work around the engine is more limited, its like working on a sports car engine v. a straight six in an old Buick with a cavernous engine compartment.  You have to find a good Mooney mechanic and keep him.  I don’t take my aircraft to any of the local guys anymore unless I have to, they don’t know the systems and things have gotten seriously messed up once too often, which I get to deal with in flight.  

[ArtVandelay]

Thanks! The picture helps me understand the wing design. Mooney's appear to have an overall better structural design than many other manufacturers. It's odd that every time I talk about buying a Mooney with the shop at the local airport he tries talking me out of it. 

Because they are harder to work on, I had my shop change out the defroster hoses, I figured it was an easy 1 hour job, especially since glare shield was removed for avionics work. Apparently it’s a tight fit, it took them like 4 hours.

[0TreeLemur]

11 hours ago, Yetti said:

This one is like one that has gone underwater.  It will never be the same.  There is no way to check for all the stresses the wing and attachment points.  Someone should pull the data plate off the tail and turn it into a playground toy.   I could not see any IA signing off as airworthy EVAR/

I agree- the plastic yield properties of aluminum are horrendous.   Wrinkling of the wing skin suggests plastic deformation of the wing, possibly including the main spar.  Normally structural aluminum behaves well.  But, once aluminum yields and goes plastic it becomes an unpredictable and highly non-linear.  Plus the load path changes under plastic conditions due to weakening of the parts that did yield.  This means that extreme load may have traveled into connectors or parts of the wing far from the main spar.  I'd think of it as an ill-tempered rattlesnake and steer clear.

[mike_elliott]

13 hours ago, tommy123 said:

A big shop can afford a rebuild like this as a project to keep the mechanics busy when business is slow.

Not ever the case at Maxwells. 

[MyNameIsNobody]

NOPE.

[KSMooniac]

Not ever the case at Maxwells. 

Yet they still managed to repair that Missile with wing damage pretty quickly and now have a great shop plane.

Sent from my LG-US996 using Tapatalk

[cujet]

In the large aircraft world, we quantify damage by measurement. Just this week, we are repairing lower fuselage skin damage to a Gulfstream G550. All dimensions matter, the width, depth, area and location. Hence, the amount of stretch is known. After rework, the bottom line is that no wrinkles or oil canning is permitted. 

Clearly, the top skin of a wing is likely to "oil can" in flight. The wing bends under load and it's 100% normal. What's not normal is to see major wrinkles on the top skin, on the ground. That is the indication of a stress to yield event. 

A local aircraft cleaner recently noticed something similar on top of a wing. The plane had been flying with a broken spar. Not cracked, not bent, broken. The good news is that the failure was near the tip and carried little load. The pilot fessed up and admitted to an event, and his 8 passengers backed up his story, as they were experienced passengers in this airplane and were able to give good testimony. It's good they are all still here. 

 

Wing spar failure

 

The above is a video of Chalks wing failure. It took time for the failure to occur. It's interesting to note that all the external signs were there for a very long time. External repairs were made on a regular basis. 

Edited August 12, 2018 by cujet

[jlunseth]

I watched your wing failure video.  Scary.  I used to fly Chalk’s all the time to get out to Bimini, they were really cool planes and since the “airline” was not very big, I probably flew on that plane.  They were amphibions that landed on the belly in the ocean, then the long gear would come down as they approached shore and they would taxi up an angled ramp.  It is somewhat odd to see that there was fire.  Perhaps when the wing came off a fuel tank ruptured and was ignited by an engine?  Sad that Chalk’s is gone.