The junior A&P in the shop that is doing my annual (whom I've known for
years) was poking around in the under-wing inspection cavities on the
starboard fuselage/wing root joint, when he let out a low whistle.

Since I was futzing around with re-attaching my god-awful wheel pants (I
don't CARE if they get me 7 knots, I almost trashed these damned "Fancy
Pants" in frustration, trying to get 'em back on!), I was right next to him
under the plane. My heart stopped -- I *knew* this annual had been going
too well!

Peering up into the hole, he showed me what looked like massive corrosion on
the wing spar -- a sometimes fatal malady, not unknown to Cherokees. Two
years ago a good friend had to replace BOTH wings on his Cherokee 140, and
his plane was down for almost a year, precisely for this problem.

My stomach churned as he called his partner, the senior A&P -- a guy with
30+ years experience on all kinds of planes.

His advice: Poke at it, to see if it's not left-over paint stripper from
the last paint job. This nearly inaccessible joint is a common place for
stripper to accumulate, because it's almost impossible to remove during the
pre-paint job pressure wash.

So, we fashioned a long, sharp scraper from some scrap aluminum, and I held
my breath as he began to poke away at it...

It easily flaked off into little chunks of "melted" paint. The metal
underneath was perfectly clean -- and completely unblemished.

Airplane ownership: A sure-fire way to take YEARS off of your life
expectancy...

Dodged another one! Hee hee!

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"