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Old 6th February 2012 | 07:54
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FullWings
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Joined: Dec 2003
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From: Tring, UK
Having owned and operated composite aircraft for the last three decades, I was interested to see the wide scale adoption of these materials by Boeing. I am more concerned about the maintenance / repair schedules, as by all accounts they seem rather simplistic, given the 'battle damage' that commercial aircraft suffer during normal operation.

From experience, I know that stress and/or impact damage to load bearing composite structures is nothing like that suffered by bonded metals. The most severe problems can be a long way from the site of the initial 'injury' and be quite hard to detect and even harder to repair. Often the only realistic thing to do is construct a whole new part...
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