On Tue, 5 Apr 2005 19:50:56 -0700, "kage" wrote:

Quite often hard landing damage such as this is prohibitively expensive to
repair. I suspect you'll find yet more damage inside the wings around the
landing gear attach points. People have tried unsuccessfully to make bush
airplanes out of Cherokees. Usually the airframe just gets bulldozed off the
side of some Alaska runway after a few months.

Karl

I agree, some people attempt to use planes like this for purposes they
were not built to withstand. But I don't think this was the case with
this Cherokee. Its been well tended by past owners, upgraded quite a
bit, and even preventative maintenance shows in the logs. Also, all
ADs show compliance in the logs. The last owner was a nice gentleman
up in Mass who used it to travel to see his son occasionally. And the
one before him was a minister in the northeast. So, no nuts in the
outback.

We've additionally been all over the wings and landing gear recently
(reoccuring AD on gear links) -- no problems at all. The wings and
fuselage don't show any wrinkling or other signs of high stress/hard
landings. This one frame member is the only damage we can find
anywhere -- and only on one side.

Luckily, I've been able to track down a couple places that have that
part on hand. It looks like it will cost a pretty penny to get it and
have it installed (a lot of riveting involved) -- but this one part
should resolve the problem.



Chuck