On 2008-07-07, Paul Hastings wrote:
Not knowing which factory you are speaking of, my guess is more of a company
policy issue for liability reasons. I know Northwest(I live in MN too) isn't
sending parts back to Airbus they are repairing them onsite.

I was thinking of the LSA market, as well as being told of one DA20 that
took out a landing light and was down for six months while waiting on
Diamond to fix it.

So are many homebuilders with composite planes, imho composite repairs are
easier. Especially in your example of hangar rash, if you ding the leading edge
in aluminum How many rivets do you have to drill and rebuck if it is a single
piece leading edge. It gets even worse if you bend an aluminum spar.

OTOH, damage that would bend an aluminum spar would break a composite wing
in half.

I don't mean to minimize the repairs required with aluminum, certainly...but
any A&P can deal with an aluminum repair. That's a major reason I ruled out
composite aircraft when I was looking. I would expect the same would go for
composite homebuilts. Sure, the builder might well be able to fix it - but
how well would the fix work, especially in the long run? How well would it
stand up to sun and weather?
--
Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com
http://jmaynard.livejournal.com http://www.tronguy.net
Fairmont, MN (FRM) (Yes, that's me!)
AMD Zodiac CH601XLi N55ZC (got it!)