Mythbusters duct tape plane
 

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

Offhand, the main issue would be the rough surface - which may be an issue along leading edges.

But, replacing a lightweight fabric covering with a high strength fabric based tape - the main issue is that the weight goes up a bit and it looks ugly.

G

http://news.cnet.com/i/bto/20100113/...ed_610x457.jpg

Eh, many of their investigations are much ado about nothing, for example the myth about drafting behind a semi truck saves fuel. This has been well known for decades. I still enjoy the show.

Except for long life durability (which the duct tape will probably not provide), the main difference is that aircraft fabric covering is pretensioned, traditionally using dope (which causes the cotton to shrink), today using heat (which causes the synthetic fibres to shrink). Hence aircraft covering is stiffer and does not "flutter" when subjected to airstream. There might be some significant stress on the covering if it is not kept under a certain tension, so it may fail after a very short time (like flags in the storm).

Ok, but they were going on like the plane would be unflyable, incredibly dangerous risky etc.

While not optimal, it was obviously flyable, and I'm sure the test pilot would have refused to take off had he not thought it was more than reasonably safe.

I wonder how / if the plane would fly without ANY fuselage skin ? (Just covering on the wings / rudder / tail / elevators ?

Reminds me of another show from PBS "Plane Crazy", where a guy was going to design his own homebuilt and build it. During the show he met with Peter Garrison (Melmouth) to review the design.

Peter mentioned that many planes during wartime flew home with amazing amounts of damage, as he was making the point that for *basic flight*, aircraft design didn't really need to be "that" precise. (I.e. for the first "pioneers").

Did they only use tape on the fuz? I reckon it would work fine on the wings and control surfaces as well if you did it right. Well at least as a temporary measure. Perhaps a bit of stitching required.

No need for fabric on the fuselage at all?
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Probably just fine but in the original story the aircraft was damaged by a bear that made holes. An alternative to repairing the holes would probably have been to strip the rest of the covering.

Some aircraft aren't covered by design..

Belite Ultralight Aircraft, Ultralight Aircraft Kits and Avionics

http://www.beliteaircraft.com/images...ground_500.jpg

http://www.beliteaircraft.com/images...gon_runway.jpg

Mythbusters were just out to make good TV.

Ya exactly what I thought:)

Initially they only "repaired" it, then they covered the whole plane with d.t. and it flew fine ... (surprise .. surprise).

The fuselage covering is very significant to both longitudinal and directional stability of any aeroplane. If you remove that, from an aeroplane designed to have it, there is a very high risk of creating serious handling problems. The largest and biggest problem might well be the aeroplane trying to fly sideways.

Generally fabric covering does add to strength, but usually aeroplanes are not designed to make use of that strength - aeroplanes are stressed and tested structurally assuming that the fabric isn't there. (Not true of metal skinned aeroplanes of-course).

So if you strip the covering off, the aeroplane may not be safely flyable, but shouldn't actually break until you hit the ground out of control.

G