"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message ...
Snowbird wrote:
This is rather amazing to me, and leads me to wonder about
the mechanic or your memory.

Well, the mechanic is now running a towtruck operation, and it's been 8 years
since we spoke about it. The Cheetah under discussion occupied the tiedown
next to mine for several years.

Rereading my post, it sounds rather snarky, for which I apologize.

But seriously, there's something strange about this story. First
that regluing in the field is not an authorized field repair method.
It was a factory repair, and I *think* I heard Fletchair might be
authorized to do it in a limited way for the purpose of fuel tank
repair. Unless the mechanic in question worked at the factory???

Second, checking the bondlines for delamination is a regular part
of the annual inspection on a Grumman. It is simple and easy
(though tedious). It's hard for me to fathom how delamination could
progress to the point where reskinning the wing was necessary,
if proper annuals by a Grumman-savvy mechanic were being done.

In fact, I can usually see the bondlines in the wing while in
flight, and you can bet any missing lines would get my attention
in a big hurry.

I *did* hear that a couple of the affected planes suffered sufficiently
extensive delamination that they went back to the factory for repair,
but this was numerically a small number, and a problem which was
basically resolved before the Grumman American went belly-up in '79.
So it still seems strange to me that one mechanic would encounter
3 severely delaminated Grummans, all Cheetahs where there were fewer
affected planes in the first place, and presumably relatively recently
(?? ie not back in the late '70s when the problem was identified
and mostly resolved).

So this does seem strange to me. Not that things which seem
strange to me haven't happened...

Sydney