NZFF

Hi all,

just to share an interesting fix on JetStar A320 N2 engine which grabbed my attention. Flying from Queenstown to Wellington
While this might be a "safe" temporary fix, I highly doubt it is recommended by Airbus . What are your thoughts?

Attention ... is that not what keeps a ARBUST together ... no really , surely it must have some reference to be allowed .

Good example was rush flight to the then almost stable states of the new commonwealth of Russia , the aircraft was an Ill-76 transport with meat and food after major EQ .. there building codes are worst than ours , fact is on rushing (not Russian) they put a fork thru the side of the aircraft , the quick fix was duct tape to seal the whole to get the plane away- after all it was only a military transport .

On a regular airline 'JETSTAR' with peoples .. shame ! .. but when ya think about it , most fuselage airline identities are transfers ... but if it crashed ... that bitta tape has a lot to answer for.

The image is not that clear but I would say (and assume) that it is speed tape. It comes in two densities - 300 and 500 mph tape. It is very sticky and is approved for temporary skin repairs and for fixes such as this.
I can recall doing a tape job on a Pan Am 747 many years ago so that it could return to Honolulu. Unfortunately it stayed on there for months which was not the intention. Great testament to the tape but not Pan Am!

Cheers CP , Wells there we go .. in hearing that it was used the Russian transport was all's fine , ... go's the other way ... at least they are checking the access panels , GARUDA are world famous for never needing such tape ... They never accessed the access panels.

Actually a great deal of care is needed when determining the use and appropriateness of tape as a temporary repair.
When I was still building up hours for my commercial pilot licence I had a job as a line boy at a flight training facility at Ardmore. It involved the usual 'slavery for flying hours' trade off ..... clean aircraft, gas up and check oil and windscreens etc.
One day a friend of mine taxied a Piper Pawnee up to the pumps to gas up. He was doing a days glider towing for the Auckland Gliding club. During the course of refueling he was discussing the state of the maintenance of the aircraft and he showed me that one of the hinges on the cockpit entry door had corroded through and that it had been taped up as a temporary measure. The Pawnee has doors that have hinges on the lower edge so that when opened the door hinges down onto the fuselage and when closing it is rotated up and latched overhead on the ceiling.
He taxied away and subsequently took off. Almost immediately I head the aircraft return and buzz the runway but in the opposite direction followed by a wing over before heading away again. All quite spectacular, illegal and totally out of character for him. He disappeared out of view and then a short time later I heard the sound of the airfield emergency alarm. I knew instantly that something bad had happened to him and sure enough I can recall arriving on the scene to find the aircraft had nosed in vertically into a paddock. There was nothing visible forward of the cockpit area. It was subsequently determined that shortly after liftoff the airflow across the door was sufficient to overcome the tape and had allowed the forward hinge area to move out into the airflow and this lead to the door latch disengaging and the top of the door to crash in on his head rendering him unconscious. What I had witnessed was the aircraft completely out of control and doing a series of wing overs before impacting the ground.
Who would have thought that a simple piece of duct tape could prove so hazardous?
Even the taping of a panel needs to be assessed to see what would happen if the panel let go. Where would it go, what might it hit (tailplane, eng inlet etc) and what is the consequence of the panel not being there....drag, disturbed airflow etc. This is what worries me about the decline in maintenance standards and the progressive use of only semi skilled people now being involved in aircraft operations. They just lack that aviation safety consciousness.....but then that is another sorry story.

That is a thing to, is the surface appropriate to apply the tape, after showing and joking about it - the quick fix that's all it take is the slipstream if the surface had contaminates were it simply was not going to stick to it .

Ian Warren wrote:

QUOTE (Ian Warren @ Aug 29 2013,12:15 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Attention ... is that not what keeps a ARBUST together ... no really , surely it must have some reference to be allowed .

Good example was rush flight to the then almost stable states of the new commonwealth of Russia , the aircraft was an Ill-76 transport with meat and food after major EQ .. there building codes are worst than ours , fact is on rushing (not Russian) they put a fork thru the side of the aircraft , the quick fix was duct tape to seal the whole to get the plane away- after all it was only a military transport .

On a regular airline 'JETSTAR' with peoples .. shame ! .. but when ya think about it , most fuselage airline identities are transfers ... but if it crashed ... that bitta tape has a lot to answer for.

Who ever said that it's a ARBUST!, that person should GET SOME ARBUST IN YA!!

Hmm, maybe that duck tape might have been there, maybe there was some tiny damage found on that A320, the engineers had put that duck tape while doing a overnight routine inspection. Just fixin it

Umm