How original, if you don't like the message - discredit the messenger!
I have not been judgmental about this, my plea was ONLY if you look back, to encourage others with such info to share it. Two of the wrinkled skin planes were informing me in confidence, and did not want their plane number or themselves identified for their own reasons. I will honor that. In one case the owner was going to sell his plane, and felt that such information would decrease its value. I have no dog in the fight, in fact making the information public will only serve to reduce the value of my own 12. I love education, for instance notice the title of this thread is loose mlg legs, that was the first impression of the cause from others.
In the interest of safety, the photo was posted so that others might glance at that area once in a while, since it CAN crack in that well hidden area, and has on at LEAST two cases with a fairly small number of flying RV12s.
You can't state it was fatigue unless you cut out the cracked areas and send them off to the met lab for fracture face inspection and analysis.
P.S. In my 43 landings this week, I gave the ole gear a purty good work-out...... Never saw any wrinkles (maybe I didn't look hard enough....)
Bob Bogash
N737G
For those convinced I am just making this all up, here is another wrinkled skin plane photo, I have no permission to publish the owners name or his plane number. Note again the brake line was smashed from the rearward deflection.
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Here are a couple of photos of the damage, kinda hard to determine just what happened first.
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I went out and inspected my plane for cracks as seen in the picture. I did not remove the nut to look under it .but the other 2 cracks can be seen with a mirror and a flashlight. I am in the middle of doing my 3rd annual. As some of you know I was the first to customer built to get Airworthied and fly (9-20-2009). I have 400 hours on this plane and fly off a grass strip.
And NO I did not have a bad landing. I did however have an incident that could have added to this problem. I was landing on a paved runway and started braking hard to get slowed down for the turn off when the left wheel started skidding and chatterting the left gear leg. (crack is on the left)This hammering back ond forth would put some real pressure on that front hole. I got off the brakes right away and really thought nothing of it at the time. This incident happened 2 years ago. I am glad that this was brought to our attention. This is a new design so one could expect things to show up with use. I dont believe it hurts the value of the aircraft. What hurts the value would be to do nothing and pretend the problem does not exsist.
I do not have the skin wrinkle that has been shown on this forum.
We need to get a fix worked out. I will be talking with my machinist brother about making a threaded bracket that hooks on to the top of the channel. (just in the thinking stage no drilling required)) Lets work togather and get this resovled.
I would be interested in hearing what others are doing for a fix. I guess if I did not have cracks I would still want to reinforce before it does. I will be doing something with the right side that is not cracked. I cant help but think that justing hitting a hole taxing could do this.
My incident was 2 years ago. Could I have missed it on my last annual ?? Very possible.
Brad Stiefvater
Salem SD
I operate off grass strips that are not always smooth. And not all of my landings are perfect. If someone comes up with an engineered reinforcement to prevent wrinkled skin, I am interested.
Joe Gores
I operate off grass strips that are not always smooth. And not all of my landings are perfect. If someone comes up with an engineered reinforcement to prevent wrinkled skin, I am interested.
Joe Gores
I operate off grass strips that are not always smooth. And not all of my landings are perfect. If someone comes up with an engineered reinforcement to prevent wrinkled skin, I am interested.
Joe Gores
I operate off grass strips that are not always smooth. And not all of my landings are perfect. If someone comes up with an engineered reinforcement to prevent wrinkled skin, I am interested.
Joe Gores
I operate off grass strips that are not always smooth. And not all of my landings are perfect. If someone comes up with an engineered reinforcement to prevent wrinkled skin, I am interested.
Joe Gores
I operate off grass strips that are not always smooth. And not all of my landings are perfect. If someone comes up with an engineered reinforcement to prevent wrinkled skin, I am interested.
Joe Gores
Edit: Interestingly, the shape of the cutouts in posts #34 and #60 is quite different. The early one (#60) is a lot narrower.
Don It might be interesting to know more about the events that took place to create this damage. From my experience these planes are not too fragile. Lots of conclusion anbd speculation. One would need to evaluate each case to find out a cause and effect. Mike
Brad or Don, is this visible from on top or underneath the plane?
I think that is just the angle the photos were taken, several of us compared our holes and it appears they are all the same, but look different from the angle photographed.
I just got email notification of another "wrinkle skin" damage in central PA, that makes 8 of them. He had not checked for channel cracking yet, but desires to not be named or identified by plane ID.
As someone said, it does seem strange that only RV12s get the poor pilots, the good ones apparently are buying Skycatchers, Sonex, and Zeniths and not having this type problem due to their superior piloting skils..
As someone said, it does seem strange that only RV12s get the poor pilots, the good ones apparently are buying Skycatchers, Sonex, and Zeniths and not having this type problem due to their superior piloting skils..
Hmm, not sure about that Don. Mine is like #41 with a fairly wide flat area around the washer, unlike #60 which has virtually no extra room adjacent to the washer. Anyway, they both cracked so we're probably not adding much to the debate here, although a wider flat would allow the use of an oversized washer or packer to distribute the bolt force over a wider area.
It is my opinion that you are beginning to cross the line with a statement like this Don, but I probably don't even need to say anything because I believe most of the readers of this forum realize how ridicules of a statement this is.
I can't point you to an statistical data (but then again you didn't either), but I have heard through the industry grape vine that significant number of all of the Sky catchers delivered so far have been involved in some type of an accident.
It is one thing to say you are passing along info for the good of the RV-12 brotherhood, but it is another thing all together when you make public statements like this... just sayin
This seems to be a problem with Vans, perhaps an easy process of notifying some department of Vans of such problems would help.
There seems to be two problems with your suggestion, first for some reason not fully understood by me, some of those with the problem are NOT wanting it to be made public, i e no reports will be made. The second problem with reporting, is that most don't actually KNOW what caused it or even when it happened. Not nice and clean for understanding the problem, but that seems to be the way it is.
The reading of this form keeps us informed of all thinks going on with the RV12 ( Both good and Bad ) as pilot in command we are responsible to take all pertinent information into account.
Input from vans is a good thing, and input from people like don is also a good thing.
At the time of this post don has about 1600 posts , and In my view has kept me informed of things to consider while building my 12. some I agree with and some not so much.
This one I agree with Scott and Don that all items of concern should be sent to Vans , and also posted on this form to Mitigate Damage. One life lost Is way too many.
MY View
I just got email notification of another "wrinkle skin" damage in central PA, that makes 8 of them. He had not checked for channel cracking yet, but desires to not be named or identified by plane ID.
As someone said, it does seem strange that only RV12s get the poor pilots, the good ones apparently are buying Skycatchers, Sonex, and Zeniths and not having this type problem due to their superior piloting skils..
Don, I can't help but wonder how you became a clearing house for this and other information about the RV-12. How is it that you get emails from people about this problem and others? And who are these shadowy people out there that confide in you, but don't have the guts to identify themselves?
As to your closing statement - you are beginning to sound a lot like the fellow in Florida, who unfortunatley passed away some time ago, that was always carping about Van's Aircraft, but yet continued to build RV-12's. I can't help but wonder why you are building a Van's product, if the others you named are so superior.
As to this thread - It is so full of rumors and guesses as to be pretty much useless, it seems to me. If there is a real problem, other than pilots making bad landings, then factual and detailed information needs to go directly to Van's for their evaluation and action. I will inspect my airplane next time to the hangar, and if I find any cracks I will deal with Van's directly, and I urge all other responsible owners to do the same.
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It appears now that I have 4 cracks
Brad Stiefvater
Salem SD
As to your closing statement - you are beginning to sound a lot like the fellow in Florida, who unfortunately passed away some time ago, that was always carping about Van's Aircraft, but yet continued to build RV-12's. I can't help but wonder why you are building a Van's product, if the others you named are so superior.