"Details Make The Difference"

N86954 has needed recovering for some time now. If you look close, you will see that the enamel that was painted over the Ceconite has been cracking and breaking off severely. Yet another example why enamels or automotive paints are big "no-no's" when it comes to fabric aircraft! Suprisingly, this is how all new Decathlon aircraft come from Champion! I have done maintenance on 2005 Decathlon's whose paint was already cracking. No matter the flex agent, it seems that unless the paint is spefically designed for aircraft (no filler/thickener material added to the paint) it WILL crack.

 

Teardown has begun on this aircraft. Only a few defects have been found, included some rusted areas on the tail feathers, and a broken frame on the rudder. Repair has begun on the rudder, which includes removing the old, corroded steel and replacing it with newly formed channels. In addition to this, both ailerons and one elevator already have new fabric on them. 

 

The left wing has been covered and turned out nicely. All tape lines were snapped with chalk lines to insure straight, unwaving lines. A crack was found by the left landing gear in the square tubing of the structure. Apparently an accident that had led to the left wing being recovered some years ago never uncovered this damage. The whole section of tubing was replaced, per ACA's recommendations. The fuselage is now ready to be bead-blasted.

 

The right wing is currently being covered and the custom-matched Aero-thane paints have arrived! 

 

A crack was found above the left landing gear spring. This was apparently from a previous ground incident that led to wing repair. After consulting with American Champion, it was decided the best fix was to replace the entire section with a new section of square steel, already pre-fabricated from the factory. This made our task simple: remove all the problem tubing, weld in the new. We used a local certified welder for the larger structural welds and finished the small stuff in-house. The fuselage is now ready for bead-blasting and epoxy priming.