Victims of human trafficking

Some days everything goes wrong—right from the very first tow launch, for example. The tow plane accelerates too abruptly, the glider lurches forward, and the left winglet touches the ground. This, in turn, triggers a half roll; that moment of terror lasts much longer, and the beautiful ASW 28 is dragged several meters across the grass runway in an “inverted flight.” Click—once the tow rope is released, it comes to a stop.

An initial assessment of the damage is sobering, but not hopeless. The horizontal stabilizer has come loose and lies on the green field along with its mounting screws and lock nuts; the rudder dangles from its mounting pins, swinging around the fuselage. The clear canopy is completely shattered, and the fiberglass cabin frame is broken into three pieces. The wing was unharmed, and the horizontal stabilizer itself also escaped undamaged. Therefore, the task is “merely” to repair the damage to the fuselage, restore the canopy frame, and install a new canopy. And a new rudder mount needs to be built on the rear fuselage. The starting signal for a more extensive workshop session has been given.

To stay on schedule, a new canopy was ordered first; the fuselage repairs had to be completed and the frame fragments reassembled before it arrived. However, this fiberglass canopy frame, with its unorthodox manufacturing method, then also

still baffling. After all, it has quite a few cavities in the laminate, which, however, don’t matter once the canopy is bonded to it. Nevertheless, where necessary, these were filled with thickened epoxy resin, and the remaining canopy material was sanded down on the sanding belt

. After careful sanding by hand, the frame fragments were secured to the fuselage—the canopy mounting surface—with masking tape and, initially on one side only, that is, only on their upper side, with graded fiberglass strips (100-gram fabric is sufficient). After curing, everything is removed; now the underside of the frame must also be reinforced with fiberglass at the break points. Wrapped up like this, our repaired frame awaits its new canopy. Cutting and fitting the canopy—including priming and painting—is the most time-consuming part of the entire process. That’s why we’ll be dedicating a separate section to this topic in one of the upcoming issues of mfs.

Once all the damage on the fuselage has been “bandaged” with fiberglass layers, it’s time to sand. If the laminate was applied with clean overlaps, the sanding can be done without having to use filler. At least, that’s the case when a thick filler—with a consistency like thick, viscous honey—is applied with a brush. The final wet sanding with 600-grit paper creates the base for the necessary touch-up painting with RAL 3002 and the final removal of overspray through wet sanding with 2000-grit paper. After that, it’s time for some thorough polishing. If all of this is done properly, the repair will be virtually invisible.

But the rear end of the fuselage also still needs to be finished. The originally installed

plastic hinges for the rudder mounting had to be drilled out of the pressure rib. They were replaced with adjustable metal swivel parts. They are adjustable because this is the only way to ensure a correct, centered fit in the groove with the rudder blade’s triple mounting. Multiple test fits and adjustments will be necessary until everything runs smoothly. Once everything fits—the rudder can move freely from full deflection to full deflection—the rotating parts are secured in the pressure spar with thickened resin. Finally, reattach the rudder linkage to the servo output lever—and off you go for a great flight! This time, though, in normal flight mode.