Hi all,
I acquired a Starduster Too project over the past week, I’d been hunting for one for a year or so and it turned out to be a mile from me. Most airframe pieces are there, various stages of assembly and finish. I’ve been going over it to get a feel for how it’s built and what discrepancies need fixing.
The fuselage was described as “factory built,” which could be true I suppose. The welds look pretty nice, and it looks straight.
One thing that caught my eye was the aft landing gear attach tab; the previous builder drilled it with only an 1/8” of edge distance. The other side (and the other attach tabs) are about 1/4” ED.
On the one hand, the force ought to be away from the edge; on the other hand, I noticed a post on this forum speculating about whether the tab is strong enough even as designed at .090, with about just barely not quite 1.5 edge distance for the bolts.
It looks like it’d be a tricky spot to repair, being near a couple of major clusters. I’m curious if operators of higher time Too’s have had any issues with these tabs?
First picture is mine, the other is from the poster with a damaged tab.
Regards,
David
I acquired a Starduster Too project over the past week, I’d been hunting for one for a year or so and it turned out to be a mile from me. Most airframe pieces are there, various stages of assembly and finish. I’ve been going over it to get a feel for how it’s built and what discrepancies need fixing.
The fuselage was described as “factory built,” which could be true I suppose. The welds look pretty nice, and it looks straight.
One thing that caught my eye was the aft landing gear attach tab; the previous builder drilled it with only an 1/8” of edge distance. The other side (and the other attach tabs) are about 1/4” ED.
On the one hand, the force ought to be away from the edge; on the other hand, I noticed a post on this forum speculating about whether the tab is strong enough even as designed at .090, with about just barely not quite 1.5 edge distance for the bolts.
It looks like it’d be a tricky spot to repair, being near a couple of major clusters. I’m curious if operators of higher time Too’s have had any issues with these tabs?
First picture is mine, the other is from the poster with a damaged tab.
Regards,
David
