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Old 23rd Dec 2013, 03:46
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JammedStab
 
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Having been involved with flying Tiger Moths for the last several years, it amazes me how many accidents there are on this type considering that there are really not that many flying.

That being said, structural issues have not been particularly frequent(that I have heard about) but my first thought when watching the video was that they really are doing some serious maneuvering.

But, I found this interesting quote from an earlier report link, "The aircraft was stressed to withstand maximum loads of approximately 7.5g (acceleration due to earth gravity). Information from the manufacturer indicated that even with the reinforcing doubler delaminated and ineffective, the aircraft was designed to withstand manoeuvre loads of about 5g."

That is a lot of G load. But as that report said, the old milk based glue can deteriorate. I would be hesitant to do aerobatics in any plane from that era with original glue like that as the 2002 crash had.

I am involved with another warbird that had old original milk glue in it and when torn apart, the glue was no longer what one would call airworthy.

Be cautious of some of these refurbished aircraft as well. I have seen two types including a Tiger Moth with modern glue used but discovered that the work done on the aircraft was shoddy and because of poor workmanship, the glued wood parts were not fully in contact with each other.

In the case of the C Tiger Moth, each walkway has several ribs underneath. The ribs should all be exactly level with each other so that when the plywood walkway is glued down on top of those ribs, full contact is made. There are techniques to ensure this which obviously were not done. With ribs not solidly in place, movement happened underneath both walkways leading to broken ribs and replacement required. Very expensive and it makes one wonder about the rest of the structure. This on what was a beautiful looking machine.

It can be very difficult to assess whether a rebuilt aircraft was rebuilt properly during an inspection which makes me hesitant to pull very many G.
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