MythBusters: Duct-Tape Plane Aftershow : Video : Discovery Channel
I enjoy watching the Mythbusters show, they do a lot of bizzare stunts with
a wide variety of tech and not so tech subjects.
Am I wrong, or is the "Duct Tape Plane" episode, "much ado about nothing" ?
If you haven't seen the episode, it was based on an apparently true story, where a bush pilot had his plane's skin torn, and some damage to the rudder inflicted by a wild bear. He apparently repaired the damage, and replaced the torn skin with duct tape.
So the mythbusters apparently had access to a similar plane (experimental model, so they could legally fly it), with which they replicated the damage and repaired the plane with duct tape, and then went further and replaced the entire plane's skin with duct tape.
The mythbuster show went to great dramatic lengths on how "dangerous" / unreliable etc etc, "mere" duct tape would be compared to the "$13,000 'proper' aircraft covering"
In the show, the pilot *does* fly their duct tape plane, but didn't "dare" to fly higher than ~ 200 feet or so off the ground (Heh, like that's gonna be any less lethal than higher up ?) (Higher up with a parachute would probably been safer, wouldn't it ?)
I'm no aircraft engineer, but I find it hard to believe there's so much difference between the fabric covering of a J3 Cub, etc, and duct tape covering the plane, that's it's gonna make that much difference on a that relatively slow plane.
So am I wrong about this ?
Mike