Robert

You didn't give much data but I probably would have flown the bird
home.

A bird will fly with one aileron fine if you are careful and fuel is
balanced for takeoff and landing.

I have flown some of my model airplanes with one aileron and they do
fine. One racer I built, only put one aileron on it to reduce drag
from aileron movement and pick up a few mph.

Also flew an 0-1 home in VN (100+ miles) with half the horizontal stab
and elevator cut off and duct taped due to damage caused by wind
blowing the parked bird (one of my FAC's parked not me) into a 55
gallon drum used as part of a revetment.

Also with half the lateral control surface on your bird (and me
aboard) I would have been careful and only made shallow banks and a
long flat approach. I also would have not pulled bird off but
accelerated to plenty of airspeed on take off.

Enough said. Mark me in the column as flying home.

Big John
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On 21 Mar 2006 16:02:44 -0800, "Robert M. Gary"
wrote:

http://www.thegaryhouse.com/aircraftdamage/

I was down in a remote area of Mexico this last weekend and a truck
backed into my aileron. I was lucky that the driver had a sat phone and
I was able to call an A&P to come down to Mexico and swap it for me.
However, all the local pilots, and the A&P who came down seemed to
think it would have flown ok as was. From a simply academic point of
view I"m curious what you guys think.

-Robert