Proseal and pop rivets

Took a hop on AA MD-80 last week, DFW to TUL. Noticed this patch on the acft and thought it looked interesting, having set quite a few blind rivets myself in the RV-12 project. That's a lot of holes to drill. Hope they got all the chips cleared out OK.

What, no edge rolling? That's a heckuva patch?I wonder what caused the damage in the first place. Condor strike?

Most likely caused by ground crew running the jetway into it.

plehrke said:

Most likely caused by ground crew running the jetway into it.

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Note the reflection of the jetway in the fuse skin. It's right there. However, it could also just as easily have been flight crew taxiing the plane into the jetway. Hey, it happens.

Hmmm

I'm not an expert for sure but looks kind of sloppy to me. Guess it'll hold up to the atmosphere/cabin pressure thou. Hope that it is just a temporary patch??? Which airline please?

That is just downright ugly. It was obviously done by someone who doesn't own the plane.

Hmm, usually they also have proseal streaks because they're in such a hurry.

proseal

I assure you that is a temporary repair and most likely has a time attached to it. Airliners don't make money sitting on the ground.
Image the interior items that are going to have to be removed to get at the other side to buck a rivet.
Cherry max rivets for sure, the sealant is to keep the pressurization in.

Considering it's an MD80 and flying from DFW to TUL, I'm going to guess it's the company I work for: American Airlines.

That repair is most definetly temporary and it would never get approved if it wasn't structuraly sound. It's all about turning the metal. Those old MD80s will be phased out within the next couple of years as they are a high time and high cycle fleet.

This looks very similar to the repair I am doing today on my RV-6A tail.
http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showpost.php?p=890572&postcount=6
I am using a few less Cherrymax and thinner plate but exactly the same idea with the proseal. I hope mine looks better then this one.

I am the culprit. A coworker who is a member on this forum sent this thread to me.
This aircraft suffered a bird strike. The aircraft had an air interupt and proceeded to land at Austin TX. if I recall. This was about 10 years ago. I have no idea what kind of bird, it was dead and smelly. The airline parked the aircraft at the old TWA air cargo ramp on the other side of the field.
When my crew arrived that afternoon we were dumped off at that remote spot and left. We were told not to leave the aircraft and they would check on us from time to time and gave us a radio to contact them on. The company gave us instructions to do a temporary repair so they could move the aircraft to a repair facility. We showed up with tools and materials to do just that. For some reason I also threw some titanium sheet in the box of materials I took along. The damage was that the skin under the patch was lifted up into a scoop shape. The bird had depressed the skin forward of the patch, sheared the rivets in the lap and pulled the skin up. I bet it made a **** of a racket.
By 6pm the radio died. We no longer had contact with the guys at the terminal. Then shift change came and we were forgotten. We had a cordless drill, and some cherry max rivets and some metal. I had brought all the technical data and we had an inspector with us. The skin panel that was damaged was either chem milled, or had a bonded doubler so the panel was pretty thick. In most areas on the 80 the skin is a minimum of .050" thick, and add the chem mill or bonded doubler and it gets thick really quick. I did not have any aluminum with me that would have been thick enough to do a straight normal type srm repair. But if you considered using a material substitution chart and the srm for temporary repairs I did have the parts to do a decent enough job to put the aircraft back into revenue service. So, we took our box of band aides, titanium and our cordless tools and went to work. At about 4 AM we finished putting that repair on by flashlight. Since they forgot about us and we had the time and materials to do a repair to return the aircraft to service that is what we did.
The repair has no chamfer because the titanium is much thinner than the aluminum it replaced. There are two sheets because of the thickness at the lap.
The repair is still on the aircraft because the damage is right over top of the EPC panel which is the main electrical panel for the entire aircraft and it would have to be removed to do the kind of repair that you would normally see. It is just not cost effective to do.
My crew flew with the line crew to DFW where the aircraft was returned to service, the PR-1422 we sealed the patch with streaked all over the place by the time we landed. It was since then resealed, although that is sloppy as well.
So, while it is not pretty it is an airworthy repair and it has been inspected over and over again. That aircraft will go to the bone yard with that repair still attached. That repair does have additional inspection requirements.
Sometimes you just have to do what you can.
Ray

Interesting update, thanks for the "rest of the story".

clipperfixer said:

I am the culprit...This aircraft suffered a bird strike.

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Ray, I never would have imagined this would come around full circle, but it's cool that it did. Welcome to VAF, too!

Fascinating report. You guys really went the extra (several) miles for the team. From your description I cannot, and do not want to, imagine what it must have been like to clean out all the bird remains from the impact site. In a word, "Eeewww!"

Good job though. Yeah, it ain't purty but the ship still makes money. Sad that AA is going to retire all the MD80s. They are actually fun to ride in with their exhilarating rate of climb.

Thanks for giving us the inside story. It looks like a very solid repair?I would gladly get on that plane!