Cruisair Wing Repair

H

Harmon

New member
It seems common knowledge that this is the Achilles heel of the Cruisair. I've read comments regarding poor hangaring, rain, rot, dryrot, and of course, those heroic termites attempting to hold the wings up in flight.

Has anyone in recent history attempted building a new set using the old wings as a template?

Is this even possible without holding the type certificate?

My understanding is that no one seems terribly interested in holding the type certificate. And with no one to go to for source material, does an A & P with experience in wood and fabric have the qualifications to undertake such a task with an AI in the unenviable role of assuming liability upon inspection? or is there a shop somewhere that has actually set up jigs to do this?

From Alexandria Aircraft's website, it appears they dabble in everything Bellanca other than Cruisair repairs when the new plane market is slow. I'm not going to trouble them with an inquiry as I am not currently in a position to order a set of wings, but I am curious, has anyone here made the inquiry, and if so, what was the cost? Again, without holding the certificate, would they even be willing to engage in such a venture.

Thoughts?
 
Alexandria does have some of the material necessary to build a wing. I recall about 10 yrs ago they rebuilt some 14-19 wings for about $7 k if I remember. Seems to me that an IA could approve repaired wings. You are right, you have to find someone willing to undertake the work. They are out there, but won't be cheap!
 
I have posted a few times about somebody to rebuild wings, and never gotten an answer. I have a stack of un-airworthy wings from my many years of parting out Cruisairs. I am not sure if the factory would refuse to work on Cruisair wings, since the difference between 14-19 wings and 14-13 wings is not huge. The spars are the same, and all of the critical angles (wash out, camber, etc) are the same. The main difference is rib spacing, and skin thickness. Also wider flaps and smaller ailerons on the 14-19. None of those differences would make much difference to an experienced wood worker. Cost is a huge factor. Our Cruisairs are not high dollar planes, but skilled woodwork is pricy. My IA sent some 14-19-2 wings to the factory for overhaul, and I think the bill was $8K. A few years later, the plane sold for $10K. Many years ago I talked to a place in Oregon that I think was called BLUE SKY AVIATION, or something similar to that. I think they rebuilt Stearman wings. They said that they would do a spar splice on a Cruisair, so I called the factory to get a price on a blank spar that was long enough to do the splice, and the price, just for the wood was $2500. So much for that idea. To build from scratch, you would need to find, out of work violin makers that would work for $2 an hour to not bust a budget. Just think about telling someone from the FAA that you just built a complete new wood wing for a certified aircraft, and you would like it signed off. Good Luck. If anyone thinks there is a shop or individual that wants to repair Bellanca wings on the west coast, I will donate a set of repairable wings (not economically repairable) for them to learn on. I hope someone has better news than me. _____Grant.
 
Just to fabric recover a good wing will cost you big time. The reason so many Bellancas are parted out is it is economical madness to attempt a major repair. You are putting good money into bad. I had a friend who started building a Falco beautiful wood Italian ship. Worked on the plane steady for 10 years died trying to finish it and he was a master cabinet maker. Sold for 5k! Get the picture----> Yes we see.
Lynn the crate :(
 
The consensus seems to be to take care of them as long as possible. Cannibalizing the un-airworthy to keep the good ones in the air. When it's over, say goodby to the era.

It seems to me that the wings are the key though. If you could actually put a brand new set on, the rest could be dealt with. Sounds ever so simple in text here on the screen.

While I have never engaged in anything more than basic maintenance on airframes, it has been my experience that duplicating a wooden part is much easier than creating it in the first place. And if production is set up for ten or more of the same parts rather than one, layout and cutting time is greatly reduced. Final assembly is of course, probably still down in the income realm of homeless luthiers. But I suspect that if some form of production were engaged, the time involved would be less than reconstructive surgery to a significantly damaged wing. The goal being a fresh lease on life for an aged fleet.
Yet even if demand was found to be high enough, and labor costs low enough, I cannot imagine anything like this ever taking place without ownership of the type certificate, like what Alexandria has done with the cruismasters. Speaking of which, does anyone know who holds the type certificate? From the FAA's website, the most current seems to be A-773 revision ten from October '73, held by Bellanca Aircraft Corperation in Newcastle Delaware. Any knowledge of what happened to it beyond that point?

Is my logic correct in this? Would owning the type certificate be the blessing you'd need from the FAA to make exact replacement wings?

Will this ever happen? I doubt it. But I suspect there is a market, just not enough of one to demand the product.

Again, Thoughts welcome
 
About a year ago, I had a Cruisair project for sale on Barnstormers. An engineer from an aviation composites company called me and was interested in making composite wings by copying originals. He said that the company he worked for got all kinds of composite things approved by the FAA, and he felt he could get new wings approved. He faded into the sunset before he came up with any cash, so I dont think he was too interested. As far as the TC is concerned, I dont think owning it has anything to do with major repairs (or minor). You dont have to own the TC to get an STC approved, which is what I think a composite wing would fall under. An IA that could sign off his own work, and was willing to make the jigs needed, and have the space needed, could MAYBE MAKE MONEY if he was also a retired cabinet maker/violin repairman and valued his time at a few bucks an hour. Anybody out there fit that description???? ______Grant.
 
Well gosh. I'm going to chime in.
1. My wings are 67 years old, and the wood is in GREAT SHAPE.
you can buy my whole airworthy plane for less than building new wings one off.

so it is all about proper care - read hanger always.. surface cosmetics are just that.

2. Smithsonian owns the type certificate, or claims to. Dead end except for drawings.

3. Anybody can make approved parts, if you jump through the hoops to create
an approved shop... it can employ chimps if it wants to. Look at the cylinder makers.

4. The wings are easier to make than aluminum ones ( of the same shape and use).
After you make the jigs. All this talk about violin makers is baloney.
Take a look at all the pictures of wings under construction at the Bellanca Factory.
It was a factory. Production line.

The work is in the jigs, steam forming box, and the problem is some processes,
like gluing on the large wing skins, which required many people all working on the same page.

I am sure the skins were die cut.. whump and spit it out. whump another one.

5. As with anything else it is about Economics of Scale.
Same set up to make 1 as 500. and with no large scale tools.. the job above becomes a tedious job of layout and hand work. which is why repairs can take many times longer than building
the original. ( same with aluminum).

6. "If you have to ask how much it costs...you can't afford it." - Cornelius Vanderbuilt.
"If you can't afford it.. don't buy a plane... any plane ." -Captain Larry-

7. Lou - down at Santa Paula repairs nothing but wooden wings. Contact him through
Dan Torrey at Mars. Alexandria does major wing repairs.. cheaply for what gets done.
Getting the wings off, boxed, and shipped is a big part of the expense. They aren't to big
to put on a truck and drive them to where they are going.

8. Buy some used wings !
800 airplanes were made.. 100 are flying. Many were abused to death.. but there have to
be another 100 which could fly, or supply airworthy wings. Sometimes the only difference between an airworthy airplane and non-flying airplane is a few grand necessary to license and insure it. First time somebody asks Avemco for a quote and are told $4000 a year... and they don't look for a better quote ( I pay $1200)... the airplane gets parked and the no sale bell rings loudly.

9. Cessna or Bellanca... when you start doing one-off major repairs, instead of doing it by parts substitution... you are going upside down economically, often even if the plane was free.

10. Naturally none of us would ever consider repairing our own airplane without benefit of the FAA seal of approval on absolutely everything, knowing as we do, that all those bellanca employees who built the things were all IA's and their wives and sisters were all designated too.

11. Time time time... if you have it you can do it.. if you don't you have to PAY.

12. Plywood is cheap... spruce for ribs is cheap. Glue is cheap. Fabric work is toxic.
The spar is complex at the butt end... using locust and other stuff that make it a challenge
to duplicate.
13. I think it is better to pay the guy who has been there many times, than to try
to figure it all out, and end up with a 3rd rate repair. However, if you cant pay for it , and you want it anyway... you HAVE to do it yourself... perhaps hiring critical parts done by experts.

14. I will choke the next person who says termite and bellanca in the same sentence. :mrgreen:

--- Buy the best airplane you can possibly afford... ( robbing one extra liquor store can make all the difference ). You will save the extra money in the first or second year of ownership.
 
other wiser guys here know about "owner supplied parts", which are perfectly legal
when no new parts are available. You better pick a bellanca expert, if you want to have them sprinkle the special water on them.

--- More realistically, what wing problem do you really have ?

Rot is easy to spot. Sometimes not really hard to fix.

If mold and generalized rot was present.. walk away.

Localized and just one spot due to trapped moisture and dirt.. rest of wings ok
then fix it and forget it.

This is where you want the counsel of a bellanca expert... Dan Torrey on west coast.
Others elsewhere.
 
If someone is needing replacement wings, I am aware of a pair of wings straight from the factory many years ago for a project. The owner of them was transferred so he sold the project and it has been parted out. The wings have never been covered with fabric and are stored in a dry hanger.
Gary
 
My project is something I acquired this summer that had been sitting inside in pieces for the past thirty years. i bought it with logs, but that's about it. I'd like to get the tail reregistered to me before it expires, but the faa wants "a complete chain of ownership" and my attempts to reach family members of prior owners have been futile so far.
Wings would need extensive work. leading edge has buckled where it was sitting. I haven't attempted to inspect the spars yet,...to me that would be the breaking point as to repair or replace, any sign of damage to the spar.
The airplane is in my drive in basement, and the wings are in a storage trailer. I'd like to put everything in my living room for storage, but I've got to take out the sliding glass window to do that,.. haven't gotten around to that yet. Mothballed,.. I think is the term.

I know I am better off buying a flying aircraft, and that's probably the route I'll go. But I am most likely a year or so away from being able to swing that sort of investment. Finding reasonable hangar space and insurance, and of course getting to know an AI familiar with the idiosyncrasies of this bird before actually starting to seriously look at the classifieds.


The wing issue though,..That's what I am really curious about. Not so much my bundle of parts, but in general. I just hate to see at the bottom of the logic tree, where it says to throw the plane away because the wings are old and more work than they're worth. Next thing you know, they'll be sending ME to the boneyard because I'm old and am more work than I'm....yeah.
And I believe that is the major reason cruisairs sell so cheap. the big question mark under the the wing. (Gee, regular Einstein here..)

I'm glad to hear Alexandria will work on the wings still, but I am puzzled why there is no mention of this on their site.

The idea of a composite wing sounds awesome, with potential weight savings alone. I suspect I have talked to the same engineer on this one as you have Grant, or a different one with the same idea.. (small world) Next time I bump into him I'll see if I can get more information. Doesn't cost anything to ask.

Larry, the picture you paint of building wings,..Yeah. that. or rather, recreating that. The workshop that was used to build the originals. An attempt of reducing cost by basic production practices. Of course, production seems a foreign word here in the states. perhaps a school of sorts,.. people working toward their a&p under supervision. I don't know. Just seems a shame.

Hey,..I figure this is the remnant of the cruisair brain trust. :) there's no where else to ask this stuff.

Thanks for the input.
 
Well, if brand new ones are still coming out of the woodwork,... it would appear there's no real need to try to start a factory production just quite yet. :lol: I'll shut up now.

Gary, I might be interested, but it's a bit down the road before I get to that point. Next summer at the soonest, if they're still available then.
 
I guess I am so lucky to have started in these old rigs so long ago when I was so young.
When I started collecting projects, the wings that needed more sophisticated repair than I could do went to a local craftsman named Harley Kiesz. Yes, Harley's start in woodworking was in cabinetry and custom woodwork. However he specialized in building and rebuilding wood wings. There are untold numbers of Bellancas and wood winged Mooneys still in the air because of his work in the last 40 years. He built wings that went to the NASM and various military museums. He rebuilt four pairs of 14-9 wings for me and two pairs for others. AND yes, he did construct a BRAND NEW set of 14-9 wings for Mike Grimes about 15 years ago. These were 98% new including spar straps and hardware.
Harley was proud of the certificate on the wall of his shop from Bellanca of Alexandria. He was one of two people in the country authorized by the factory to do unlimited construction and reconstruction of Bellanca wings.
Where does this lead me?
Harley has been gone now for about ten years.
There aren't many Harley Kiesz left to do wing work.
Take care of your wings.
Dan
 
The wing man at Alexandria Aircraft is Randy Scott. He does all of the repairs and occasionally will build a new wing. He is a great guy and does excellent work.
 
I have spent more than 10 working days, just to repair a 3 foot gash in my fuselage.

Had I known WTF I was doing, I would have razor bladed a whole section out the width of the fuselage.. and not messed with sewing, stripping down to bare fabric, and building back up, so I could produce a labor intensive 3rd rate repair. or I could have doped a patch to the painted fabric, and had a 3rd rate repair much faster ! :roll:

My point being, that only poverty or stupidity ( or both !)
will lead a beginner to do what an expert has done 100 times before.

I am sure there is a Chinese proverb for this., :mrgreen:
 
I stopped for coffee with the guys at Alexandria Aircraft today and I asked Randy if he could build a new 1413 wing. He said that he could NOT because they don't have the type certificate. He can repair any of the wood wings regardless of the type certificate.
 
I recall that one could "repair" and entire airplane if you start with just a data plate. I would argue that one could repair a wing if you use at least one salvagable part from the original wing.
 
What we need is another Harley Kiesz. There is a fellow that comes to the Booneville Flyin every year in a Volksplane, that is a work of art. The man is a cabinet maker, and does beautiful work. I talked to him about doing Bellanca wing repair, and he said he could, but he asked me if I thought he could make money at it, and I said that I doubted it. So much for that idea. It needs to be a work of love, or a pensioner that doesnt have to make $50/hour to keep his chin above water. MAYBE SOMEDAY! _______Grant.
 
What LL said is pretty much the truth. Dawley "repairs" a tired exhaust system by replacing 90% of the metal. Harley "repaired" the wings using my pair a model and using existing blueprints and some usable fittings. Remember, I said they were 98% new..........Yes, a lot of airplanes have been built around a data plate.
Dan
 
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