Wing development.

[1980Mooney]

6 hours ago, EricJ said:

Composites don't tend to age as well as aluminum structures, too, and are harder to inspect.   I'd be pretty suspicious of a decades-old composite airframe.

Our fifty-year old beer cans are far easier to inspect and maintain than a fifty-year old composite structure.

Really?  Why are we always reading on MS about all the sad stories where MSC’s failed to find catastrophic corrosion during PPI’s? And @M20Doc has kindly shared pictures of corroded aluminum Piper wings that sadly tend to separate. There is currently a massive Piper wing spar corrosion AD (5,400 Cherokee's) precipitated by a fatal Embry Riddle wing separation- venerable ER was not able to inspect and identify the problem. 
 

You fail to mention the steel frame corrosion that troubles many Mooney’s

https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/new-piper-wing-spar-ad-affects-5400-aircraft/

[1980Mooney]

27 minutes ago, Hank said:

And yet our old-fashioned aluminum airplanes also had no testing, and yet there are no Mooney parts / assemblies / airplanes that have Life Limits, or that require additional testing to use beyond a certain time frame or usage amount. Lycoming, Continental, Hartzell, McCauley and accessories excepted, and these same limitations apply to the various Cirri also.

Let’s not forget that the NTSB is still investigating why the wings sadly folded up on Bravo N9156Z in Minnesota in 2021.  We may be facing an AD requiring inspection, testing and limits  - just like the Piper Cherokee wing separation AD  

 

http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2021/08/mooney-m20m-257-tls-bravo-n9156z-fatal.html?m=1

[EricJ]

11 minutes ago, 1980Mooney said:

Really?  Why are we always reading on MS about all the sad stories where MSC’s failed to find catastrophic corrosion during PPI’s? And @M20Doc has kindly shared pictures of corroded aluminum Piper wings that sadly tend to separate. There is currently a massive Piper wing spar corrosion AD (5,400 Cherokee's) precipitated by a fatal Embry Riddle wing separation- venerable ER was not able to inspect and identify the problem. 
 

You fail to mention the steel frame corrosion that troubles many Mooney’s

https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/new-piper-wing-spar-ad-affects-5400-aircraft/

You make my point about ease of inspection.    With composites the cracking and deterioration can be internal where it cannot be detected visually.    The aluminum and steel tube airplanes that are getting repaired have had their issues detected in time to be repaired and extend their useful life.    It's harder to do with composites.    Not impossible, just harder and often more expensive.

[EricJ]

52 minutes ago, 1980Mooney said:

Hmmmm - that’s not what they said. They said that they have tested the components to 24,000 hours which is TWICE the “Life Limit” at which time more testing will be prescribed.  They clearly said it will last longer  

This safe “Life Limit” is a conservative number in which no testing -ZERO - is required.  

I think the leading statements in the last two paragraphs are far less nuanced than the argument you're making. 

[1980Mooney]

7 hours ago, EricJ said:

As also Composites don't tend to age as well as aluminum structures, too, and are harder to inspect.   I'd be pretty suspicious of a decades-old composite airframe.

Like any new technology there are plenty of old wives tales when looking in “the rear view mirror “. Aircraft manufacturers are rapidly learning how to overcome past shortcomings of composites in order to take advantage of their superior performance. The trend towards composites in commercial aircraft is accelerating.  GA aircraft benefit from the same superior properties. There is no way to build a “beer can” Epic 1000 with the same performance and cost.  
 

A viable future Mooney will need to be “plastic”….(that’s why I say it will need $200 mil investment)

https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/aircraft/brands/epic/2020-planes-of-the-year-epic-e1000-pipistrel-velis/

https://simpleflying.com/787-a350-composite/

[1980Mooney]

1 hour ago, EricJ said:

You make my point about ease of inspection.    With composites the cracking and deterioration can be internal where it cannot be detected visually.    The aluminum and steel tube airplanes that are getting repaired have had their issues detected in time to be repaired and extend their useful life.    It's harder to do with composites.    Not impossible, just harder and often more expensive.

But they will not suffer corrosion to begin with…..

This is like saying the old tube type TVs were superior to the first transistor Sony TVs because you could get access to the (unreliable) tubes and replace them. All the American manufacturers clung to that “rear view mirror” paradigm much to their demise.  They are all gone and Sony still exists. 
 

Much the same, Mooney is effectively gone as a manufacturer and Cirrus thrives. 

Edited February 8, 2023 by 1980Mooney

[carusoam]

1) Care and feeding of composites is going to be more important than their ordinary life expectancy…

2) Some construction techniques have seen improvements as well…

3) the first lightning strike protection meshes… didn’t work out so well…

4) UV light has a tendency o break down the polymer substrates…. Keep well painted, all of the time…

5) The hard one to control… ridiculous temperatures found out on the ramps… can be hazardous too…

 

How hot can you store a ballistic parachute safely?

Best regards,

-a-

Edited February 8, 2023 by carusoam

[carusoam]

3 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

Let’s not forget that the NTSB is still investigating why the wings sadly folded up on Bravo N9156Z in Minnesota in 2021.  We may be facing an AD requiring inspection, testing and limits  - just like the Piper Cherokee wing separation AD  

 

http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2021/08/mooney-m20m-257-tls-bravo-n9156z-fatal.html?m=1

Hmmmmmmm….

Lets remember to look closely at that report…

There may have been a flight control surface lost from the tail…

 

The composite elevator weight discussion in the other thread had me thinking about this accident..

The debris field was lead by tail feathers, prior to the break up…???

Fuzzy PP memories only… seeing if anyone else remembers the detail…

Best regards,

-a-

[Guest]

5 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

But they will not suffer corrosion to begin with…..

This is like saying the old tube type TVs were superior to the first transistor Sony TVs because you could get access to the (unreliable) tubes and replace them. All the American manufacturers clung to that “rear view mirror” paradigm much to their demise.  They are all gone and Sony still exists. 
 

Much the same, Mooney is effectively gone as a manufacturer and Cirrus thrives. 

A client of mine sent his SR22 to another shop on the field for a PPI.  The shop told the buyer that the carbon fibre in the wing spars was corroding!  Needless to say the airplane was pulled from the shop.

[EricJ]

9 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

But they will not suffer corrosion to begin with…..

This is like saying the old tube type TVs were superior to the first transistor Sony TVs because you could get access to the (unreliable) tubes and replace them. All the American manufacturers clung to that “rear view mirror” paradigm much to their demise.  They are all gone and Sony still exists. 
 

Much the same, Mooney is effectively gone as a manufacturer and Cirrus thrives. 

And aluminum structures don't suffer delamination and internal cracking like composites do.   And delamination and cracking can be much harder to detect and repair.    They're different.    We do know that aluminum and metal tube structures can be inspected and repaired and maintained nearly indefinitely, and we don't have the same experience with composite structures.   Maybe someday.

Composites are a great solution for a lot of things, but we don't know yet that longevity of airframes is one of them, and there are reasons to doubt.

 

[PT20J]

Composites are also harder to dispose of. Boeing found this out when the first few 787s were so heavily modified that no airline wanted to accept them and Boeing had a hard time disposing of them. Aluminum can be chopped up and sold for scrap. You have to pay someone to dispose of composites some of which may be considered hazardous materials. 

[Hank]

1 hour ago, EricJ said:

Composites are a great solution for a lot of things, but we don't know yet that longevity of airframes is one of them, and there are reasons to doubt.

I'm no chemist, but I'm guessing this is related to why so many composite airplanes are painted mostly white? This rather limits the possible color schemes!

[Pinecone]

2 hours ago, PT20J said:

Composites are also harder to dispose of. Boeing found this out when the first few 787s were so heavily modified that no airline wanted to accept them and Boeing had a hard time disposing of them. Aluminum can be chopped up and sold for scrap. You have to pay someone to dispose of composites some of which may be considered hazardous materials. 

Same with blades from wind turbines.  Right now, they bury them.  

And Eastern Europe had the issue with the Trabants.  They used a resin impregnated cardboard for the body.   

[PT20J]

2 hours ago, Hank said:

I'm no chemist, but I'm guessing this is related to why so many composite airplanes are painted mostly white? This rather limits the possible color schemes!

I believe it’s to keep the temperature rise from solar heating as low as possible. Somehow Cirrus figured out how to solve that but I don’t know if they use some special paint, or if there are any limitations on paint or color.

[hammdo]

I used this on my velocity:

https://www.wicksaircraft.com/shop/smooth-prime-uv-primer/

or a form of this:

https://www.compositesworld.com/articles/plant-tour-albany-engineered-composites-rochester-nh-us

my guess they have something similar or they may do a controlled oven temp staging on the composite to increase the temp point…

-Don

[1980Mooney]

4 hours ago, Hank said:

I'm no chemist, but I'm guessing this is related to why so many composite airplanes are painted mostly white? This rather limits the possible color schemes!

 

1 hour ago, PT20J said:

I believe it’s to keep the temperature rise from solar heating as low as possible. Somehow Cirrus figured out how to solve that but I don’t know if they use some special paint, or if there are any limitations on paint or color.

Technology keeps moving forward rapidly.  Sometimes pictures are worth thousands of words to dispel assumptions. I'm not seeing "mostly white".  Lot's of dark colors here.  Diamond introduced the "Black Knight" version of the DA-50RG.

 

[Pinecone]

3 hours ago, hammdo said:

my guess they have something similar or they may do a controlled oven temp staging on the composite to increase the temp point…

-Don

All the structural parts are vacuum bagged and autoclaved.

[carusoam]

9 hours ago, PT20J said:

Composites are also harder to dispose of. Boeing found this out when the first few 787s were so heavily modified that no airline wanted to accept them and Boeing had a hard time disposing of them. Aluminum can be chopped up and sold for scrap. You have to pay someone to dispose of composites some of which may be considered hazardous materials. 

Aluminum can be infinitely recycled… good as new.

Composites… not so much.

Proper incineration can get a lot of heat energy out of them… ?

PP thinking out loud again…

-a-

[carusoam]

6 hours ago, PT20J said:

I believe it’s to keep the temperature rise from solar heating as low as possible. Somehow Cirrus figured out how to solve that but I don’t know if they use some special paint, or if there are any limitations on paint or color.

Temperature, but mostly UV resistance…

White reflects the most light possible… keeping the surface cooler, and keeps UV light from damaging the polymer…

-a-

[PT20J]

From https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2018/08/12/what-i-learned-about-aircraft-paint-at-oshkosh/

What about coming up with a design for a Cirrus? Barnett explained that the reason newer Cirruses are no longer simply white is that the factory worked with Sherwin-Williams (the “Jet Glo” folks) to develop paints of color (not “colored paints”!) that reflect sufficient light/heat to be used on a composite aircraft. But why are these schemes mostly so ugly? Barnett says that the challenge of designing a scheme for the Cirrus is that the plane is “pregnant” (let’s look to our own waistlines rather than blaming Duluth for this!). So a paint scheme has to distract the viewer’s eye from the fundamental shape of the airplane, unlike with, say, a TBM where the shape is inherently attractive.

[carusoam]

Burning carbon fiber composites is probably easy… very little of the filler will ever be seen…

Burning glass based composites… leaves a lot glass in the ash….

The resin would be similar to burning oil…. Controlling the flame will be important… not easy… kind of a technical incineration job…

There are a few hazardous waste sites that convert the waste to something less hazardous this way… it’s a bonus when heat energy gets recovered…

PP guessing only…

Best regards,

-a-

[carusoam]

Kind of like…

Dressing up an Orca in a one piece swimsuit…. 

Making it a colorful Orca instead…

Brilliant!

-a-

[Pinecone]

9 hours ago, carusoam said:

There are a few hazardous waste sites that convert the waste to something less hazardous this way… it’s a bonus when heat energy gets recovered…

In Baltimore there is a trash to power plant.   Nice business model, people bring you fuel and pay you to take it.  Then you burn it and sell the power.

To me, win - win.  And why not build more.

The metal come out molten and are recycled.  Most of the rest is burnt and they have excellent scrubbers so only water vapor and CO2 go out the stack.

[Fly Boomer]

11 hours ago, carusoam said:

Burning carbon fiber composites is probably easy… very little of the filler will ever be seen…

I wouldn't expect carbon to burn.  Does the burning just consume the filler and leave the carbon behind?

[carusoam]

On 2/9/2023 at 10:01 AM, Fly Boomer said:

I wouldn't expect carbon to burn.  Does the burning just consume the filler and leave the carbon behind?

Expect the carbon to burn… like coal, the end product is CO2.

It will take sufficient O2 to burn it… or the side product would be CO…

Even diamonds will burn…

PP thoughts only,, not a carbon chemist…

Best regards,

 -a-