On 2019/05/21 19:04, Thomas Greenhill wrote:

If this taurus were indeed exposed to high enough temperatures for long enough to distort or melt the canopy, I would definitely argue that it has significant composites damage.

I think we can accept that most FRP gliders have a "service limit" of
maximum temperature under load of somewhere between 80C and 200C. This
is quite low but more than adequate for purposes, even for flying in the
desert conditions.

But that is not quite the same case as the damaged Taurus. The only
relevant information I could find on Google was one comment was from
this link
https://www.permabond.com/2011/11/10...ant-adhesives/

"Most adhesives can resist higher temperatures than what is listed as
the service temperature for short periods of time providing adhesion to
the substrate is high, and the stress is low."

Is that Taurus safe to fly?
Is there any means of testing the structure to determine if it has
suffered permanent damage?

I can understand why the manufacturer says "NO". The potential of a
liability claim from a future owner is huge, even if the future event
was not related to this damage, potential legal costs would be enough to
make the lawyers veto anything the engineers might say.

But if it was YOUR money invested in the aircraft would YOU fly it?

Ian


PS: I know of a few gliders that were damaged in fires, repaired and
returned to service. The repairs were done by experience professionals
and included post repair heat curing and post repair structural load
testing. These aircraft are still flying today, decades later.