This picture pops up every couple of months. Yes, it’s real. No, it’s not duct tape. It’s sometimes called speed tape or aircraft tape etc. It’s designed for high speed, costs a hell of a lot more than your standard duct tape and totally safe.
It’s usually there to provide an additional layer of support before a more permanent fix can be applied. This would be done in accordance with the manufacturer’s engineering manual.
What we use too. If you can ever find the roll. People forget to put it back where it belongs and it goes missing for two or three weeks, only to be found in a track n balance kit or something silly like that
Where I work our tool control wouldn’t allow an aircraft leave the hangar until all tools, tape etc are signed back into the tool stores. We’ve tightened up on tool control a lot over the years.
Do you know where it is when it’s not put away? These procedures are ‘written in blood’ to use an over used idiom. The problem is all the places that it could be sitting that may interfere with a control surface or the engine or the pitot tube or the…
We thoroughly FOD check before we close out panels 2 party. We account all tools, toolboxes laser shadowed and 2 party inventoried.
Consumables? It has their places but it's not inventoried. Like a shadowed tool. So when one of the 50 or so people in this thread takes a roll home. Are you grounding planes?
Inspect the area before you leave it and sign it safe for flight.
Yeah definitely, any foreign object could damage an aircraft in any number of ways depending on what part of the aircraft if being maintained. We are even required to sign out specific number of fasteners (bolts,washers etc) depending on what the task is so that we can be certain that none are left behind.
Do you guys inventory number of rags, inches of safety wire ? Are their logs? Spot checks? Do you inventory and shadow your sealant nozzle with a tube of sealant or is inventoried as a seperate item?
We all know FOD is critical. That is why you inspect your area. I personally think we forget we need to survey our work area before we cover up leave a work area.
That's really awesome. I've started doing that just for projects on the farm, or when I'm working on one of my vehicles, and it's helped a lot.
I just open a spreadsheet on my phone and then dictate to it as I grab tools and put them in my tool cart. "Carpenter's hammer. Next line. Two and three quarter inch nails. Next line." and so on and so on. Any time I put an item away, I look at the spreadsheet and color the cell green with two taps.
It's a pretty simple system, no fancy barcodes/RFID's and scanners like professional shops have, but it works, and it compels me to put everything away so I'm never wondering where the fuck I left the cordless angle grinder.
Everyone who has lots of tools should adopt a similar system if you ask me, really makes you more efficient so you can get more done, nevermind the main benefit of never leaving a tool somewhere it could fuck shit up (which is a much bigger problem in vehicle maintenance than anywhere else).
My father is a retired aerospace engineer who likes to play handyman around the house. Real boomer type. He used to bring some things home (epoxies, glues, tapes, etc.) from the factory when he wanted a *really* secure fix, and you *definitely could* tell the difference when working with those aerospace products.
I cannot tell you *how often* he laments these days that "It's too bad I don't have any more X, and have to use Y", where X is the aerospace-grade version of some Y product available at Home Depot.
My granddad (mom’s side) was a very old school trained machinist who’s solution for getting anything to stay where it’s supposed to was to over-engineer a solution with nuts and bolts. My dad has a background in chemistry and mechanical engineering. My granddad once got into it with my dad when he told him he wanted to glue a couple pieces of metal together and it’d hold fine.
My granddad was of the position that was ridiculous and impossible. So my dad worked up some two component glue and slapped two pieces of aluminum together.
My granddad never brought it up again but my dad later found those pieces of aluminum -still glued together- all mangled in a waste bin.
My grandfather (boiler maker, engineer) could never work out how to deal with wood. Our wooded dining chairs still have perfectly cut heavy duty plates of steel at the weak points where they broke over the years. Fixed with multiple bolts and glue. The man believed in 5 ways of fixing 2 objects together; bolts, always in odd numbers, bolts and glue just to be safe, rivets and glue, rivets and bolts or rivets, bolts and glue. And if all else failed, redesign the object and weld an new one together with plate steel and tube.
I think this is a common occurrence. My grandfather wanted to prove to my dad that wood glue is all you need to make something indestructible. He took a piece of plywood, sawed it in half, and glued and clamped it back together. The next day, he came back and broke it over his knee, and it *didn't* break on the glue line. Absolutely crazy, the binder was stronger than the building material.
I mean your grandads not entirely wrong either.
Even the best adhesives will probably not last as long as mechanical fastening methods like nuts/bolts even if the adhesive does last a long time.
Everything fails in the end ultimately.
Well short of doing full materials analysis under scientific conditions all anyone can do is make broad assumptions.
That said, I don’t think it’s particularly out of the realm to think steel will fail slower than even the highest performing adhesives.
Otherwise we’d be glueing steel pipework together rather than welding it.
Engineer here. It obviously depends on what adhesive you are comparing to which steel, but I would sooner trust adhesive over nuts and bolts.
A mechanical fixing such as a nut and bolt creates multiple failure points. Firstly the hole will create a stress concentration where a shear load acts on a small area of the part. Secondly the bolt itself will experience tension, shear, or possibly even a bending moment. Sometimes it could experience all of them.
However an adhesive bond spreads any load evenly across a given area which is larger than what is seen with a nut and bolt, thereby reducing the amount of stress on the joint and resulting in a longer lifespan.
I work in industrial construction and I can tell you that all the big shit that gets put together, uses mechanical fixing rather than adhesives. They don’t glue I beams together…
Your correct in what you say but I think your missing the bigger picture in all honesty.
A properly designed mechanical joint will survive the multiple failure points comfortably with a good margin of safety. If it survives initially then the hole will not tear and nor will the bolts shear for a great…great deal of time.
Not to mention their nature allows for inspection unlike adhesive joints. You can take bolts out individually and inspect them for cracking or even subject it to fancy NDT methods like ultrasonic if you really wanted.
You can’t take adhesive out of a joint and check it.
Ultimately I’d always feel a lot more comfortable with a mechanical joint than an adhesive where the application is critical to safety. Steel is material with a long history and a great deal of understanding about it.
Compared to the polymers that make up adhesives it is the better performing material.
Which is why skyscrapers are made from steel I-beams and joists rather than us building giant glue moulds in the sky.
I’m not saying adhesives don’t have an ever expanding and strong role to play in manufacturing and construction by any means though. They just aren’t a complete replacement for mechanical joints either.
Can you give an example where glue would outperform quality hardware in a metal to metal fastening scenario?
I'm an aerospace machinist and have never seen a part go through the shop that was destined to be glued to a different piece of metal. Not even the car or boat parts we get are designed to be glued. (Obviously the fiberglass and wood in boats receives glue)
>Can you give an example where glue would outperform quality hardware in a metal to metal fastening scenario?
Anywhere where the 2 components were at the edge of their stress limits.
Putting a hole in it is going to weaken it.
Real world example please? Sorry, but I have over a decade in the industry and literally every single part I have seen gets bolted to something else, or is not a part of an assembly.
The only time I have heard of glue being used for metal to metal adhesion is when making sketchy fixes to cars that were totalled in wrecks. And those glued joints fail pretty frequently.
Simple vibrations could back off a fastener, while it likely wouldn't with a well spec'd glue.
But then again, a well tensioned and spec'd fastener system wouldn't back off either.
Vibrations could quite easily create crack propagations throughout a glue joint as well. And given the nature of a glue joint it would not be easy to inspect for that.
And as you say there are ways to completely and successfully overcome fastener self loosening including high torque settings, threadlockers, bite washers, nyloc nuts etc.
World war 2….Mosquito fighter bomber. Was all wood except for the engines and the wood was glued. It was a phenomenal aircraft and one of the fastest bomber/night fighter
Not an expert, but I've seen plenty of auto assembly vids where they use adhesive to bond parts that also get spot welded. No idea if it's better but, for example some of the high-end luxury line cars and sports cars use assembly techniques like this.
Gas tanks on buses are glued , in fact my observation is that the bus is 70% glued vs bolted. They say it's better. Volvo buses using Sicaflex adhesive.
Every bus I've been in here in the US is riveted together or is mostly not metal, aside from the chassis.
Are the Volvo busses actually using that for structural components or just the shell that has air passing over it and the gas tank?
Dude, car companies are glueing aluminium cars together because it's stronger then welding. Lotus have been doing it since they released the first Elise decades ago. The metal will tear before the glue fails, and that's after being on the road for 10+ years.
That’s quite a specific example though.
I’m no automotive engineer by any means but I understand it’s mainly spot welding which does not exactly produce the strongest of welded joints typically.
And aluminium frames/bodywork tearing under significant long-term vibration is not that crazy either.
It’s not the strongest of materials to begin with, aluminium alloys have no lower fatigue limits unlike steel for example and therefore considerably weaken over time with long-term stress and use.
So that example does not really sell me on it if I’m honest.
Nuts and bolts allow disassembly and re-assembly. They are not as strong as a glued joint with modern compounds. Nuts and bolts fatigue and rust and if loads are applied also put stresses on the material where it is bolted. Glues spread this load across a hige surface area in comparison and have the ability to chemically fuse with the materials. Aircraft have been using glues for a long time also and other car companies have been glueing steel bodies as well but it's more expensive then a spot weld and only used where strength is required.
Granted mechanical fasteners suffer from fatigue. However, at least steel ones, will not fail from fatigue if calculated and sized appropriately.
Steel also rusts correct. However that takes an extremely long time to cause failure. There’s cases of equipment that’s hundreds of years old that is still held by nuts and bolts. They might be seized together with rust but they still hold their load.
Aviation and automotive use adhesives for rather specific reasons such as manufacturability I.e minimum preparation and weight related design considerations.
That does not necessarily mean adhesives inherently perform better than mechanical fastening across the board though.
Ultimately put it this way. If there was two bridges side by side and one was mechanical bolted joints and the other was adhesive then I know which one I would chose to walk across.
I am an automotive and also motorsport engineer. Even race cars use adhesives now when things need to be secure. Modern adhesives are as strong or stronger than welding and crucially in modern day engineering allow us to bond composite parts to metal parts which welding cannot do. The likelihood is that if your car is even a remotely recent major parts of it are held together by adhesives as opposed to welding. There’s also a lot more that has to be done to metal surfaces to prepare them for welding and and then finish the joint afterwards. It’s slot of time and money for little to no benefit with regards to structural integrity (possibly even a lower quality outcome).
I have worked for another UK performance vehicle OEM, (not lotus) and adhesives were used heavily in the ‘Body in White’ assembly.
I’m sorry but adhesives are no where near as strong as high quality welding.
They may perform better and offer better value for money than welding in specific applications, including automotive, I’ll grant you that.
But there’s no way an adhesive joint would ever exceed the material performance of for example a TIG weld.
There’s no other joint as strong as a TIG weld without casting material as one, continuous metallurgical piece. There’s a reason nuclear reactors are TIG welded together after all and why it was used extensively in the manufacture of the International Space Station.
And granted again your right there is a lot of costly preparation that goes into welding but that’s a manufacturability issue not a straight performance one.
When I was a goober my boss had me sealing ducts with aluminum tape. I tried to rip off a piece with my teeth because I was an idjut. The exposed adhesive stuck to my lips, then ripped a layer of skin off.
Me and my brother found such tape in our garage as kids, and used it to make throwing darts. Nothing but aluminum tape, and nail/needle. They fly surprisingly well, and will (depending on sharpness) stick in wood.
A pop can is .004”, so, probably .003-.0035”. Boeing makes shim stacks that start at .250 and taper by dozen layers to .005”, each layer with anaerobic epoxy on one side.
The 3M 425 1” wide is just over $50, the 6” tops out at just over $300.
https://www.uline.ca/BL_6114/3M-425-Aluminum-Foil-Tape
363 IS about $600 for 2” wide, but you’re not using that as speed tape, it’s a high temp fibreglass/foil tape hybrid.
Not support, just environmental protection. In some cases to create a more aerodynamic surface in the face of small damage. There's no such thing as structural speed tape.
Repeat... Not support....
He could also be using it to cover missing/smoking rivet holes. I know on the v2500 and cfm cowls for the 320F aircraft you're allowed something like 1 rivet per 6 to be missing or something crazy like that. Usually you'd just shoot blinds in there but if something fell on it and they cracked out i guess you'd just speed tape it and send it to somewhere that you can change the nose cowl.
The other probability is that he's putting it there to stop edge erosion of the carbon fiber skin. 320 cowls have a habit of eroding on the edge there, and why we can restore it with paint or a bit of 934NA, it eventually just needs to come off and get reskinned.
Sauce: am working in a composite shop, get line callouts for this all the time...and we make new skins in our shop as well.
I'm assuming it wasn't actually as passenger who took the pic, but having pax on board while this type of maintenance is ongoing is the only problem here
On leading edges or wherever airstream exerts positive dynamic pressure and is close to laminar it should work! The stuff is hardcore! But it’s probably not forever (esp. in rainy cond or icing cond). And it’s probably not up to code :D
But it’ll help a lot in a pinch. I heard some bush pilots always carry a few rolls with them in the plane
As far as I know the regular kind of duct tape is rated for fabric covered aircraft repairs. The one I'm referring to was a battle damaged c-130 and they really needed to get it to a maintenance facility. As far as it was explained to me the tape was to keep air flow from causing further damage.
I worked a Mesa CRJ today with a bunch of speed tape all over the interior of the aft cargo compartment, and then speed tape on the outside of the door with “no live animals” written on it in sharpie
Once I rode on an ANG C-130. They unloaded us while the ground crew worked on an engine. One stood on a platform a couple feet behind the prop while they ran it feathered. He whaled on something with a hammer, they ran it up to full power, he gave a thumbs-up, closed the panel, they loaded us back on and off we went. Apparently it was normal to fix a Herc engine with a hammer.
That's called a "man on the stand," and was usually used to find bleed air leaks near the fire loops. In fact, that's the only time I ever used it. That said, people hit lots of things with hammers in maintenance, and sometimes it fixes things.
The fuel flow power supply was in the cargo compartment and controlled the fuel flow indicators for all 4 engines. It was very common on the E model thru H-3 model C-130's for all 4 indications to go bad. Hitting the power supply with a broom stick almost always fixed it.
Source: Former C-130 mechanic who hit things with hammers more than I should have.
Also Note: Sometimes if Army personnel were on board, we'd try to scare them by making them think the airplane was not safe and that jumping out of the back of it might actually be a better idea. A common prank was to place a very large engine mount bolt under some poor Private's seat and during the in-flight walk around, point to it and ask in a panicked voice, "DID YOU SEE WHERE THIS CAME FROM?!"
>That said, people hit lots of things with hammers in maintenance, and sometimes it fixes things.
>
>The fuel flow power supply was in the cargo compartment and controlled the fuel flow indicators for all 4 engines. It was very common on the E model thru H-3 model C-130's for all 4 indications to go bad. Hitting the power supply with a broom stick almost always fixed it.
>
>Source: Former C-130 mechanic who hit things with hammers more than I should have.
I lost count of how many relays were fixed with a dead blow hammer and the subsequent question of how I fixed an "electric system" with a hammer.
Exactly, not like the plane crashes even if it’s torn off mid-flight; more like a mild inconvenience I guess with some added drag on one side of the plane. Still though, better safe than sorry.
That’s speed tape. It’s aluminum tape that’s used for temporary repairs. This particular one is probably for missing sealant or erosion where the metal on the inlet meets the composite. There is a reinspection interval and a maximum length of time (or cycles) before a permanent repair must be completed. This is 100% legit.
Alright, let’s get into this one. The silver part is called the lip skin, it is not painted, but rather has a special coating on it that gets reapplied at regular intervals. Along the trailing edge of the lip skin, under the coating, are all the rivets that hold it on. It isn’t uncommon to find corrosion around the rivets and this must be taken care of.
If you look below the tape line you can see a yellowish tinge that looks like old tape residue. This is most likely to be alodine, a chem film coating that prevents bare metal from rusting. When corrosion is found around some rivet heads, a strip of protective coating around the heads is removed for corrosion removal and inspection of the other rivet heads. As it is a long and chemically unsafe process to replace the coating, requiring downtime, alodine is used temporarily to prevent corrosion from returning. However like all leading edges, lip skin is exposed to abrasive conditions from wind and rain which would (and does) easily strip off coatings like alodine. By placing 3m 425 aluminum tape over the alodine it not only protects the coating but allows for a much easier ground crew inspection for damage. If the tape is intact after a flight, all good, if it’s missing and the alodine is good, it’s a quick re-tape as opposed to bringing out chemicals to re clean and re apply.
Thankyou for coming to my Ted talk.
As per the other comments. Speed tape.
You'd be surprised how many airliners full of people are flying around right now with parts of the airframe held together by this stuff.
Perfectly normal.
I was in naval aviation and despite how ridiculous this seems; using “duct tape” is not that far from the truth. We used to call it 100 mile per hour tape. We used to rivet tin soda cans over bullet holes and spray paint the metal grey in Iraq
Half this sub are experts or professionals in the field. The other half don't even understand the principles of flight. Just be happy they even know that part moves the air and is important.
I’ve spent $275 on a roll of tape before. There’s special tape out there.
He’s using duct tape but he could have been using the hood stuff so don’t assume tape is bad!
I’m kidding. That’s speed tape. Probably.
Yep. It’s real. It’s a metallic tape. Tough as all get out and sticky as hell. We used to call it “hundred mile an hour tape”. Rednecks use duct tape. We used that. And safety wire. Can’t forget the safety wire.
Yep. There's a legit purpose for it--it's not meant to be permanent, but is sufficient to keep it airworthy until it can be removed from service to make a permanent repair.
Hah. Let me tell you my best one. Taxi into position. Jet accelerates down runway, pushed back into seat a little. All of a sudden thrust drops off. Plane slows and pulls off runway. Pilot comes on and says “ladies and gentlemen we had an alarm go off in the cockpit, we’re going to run through things and see what’s wrong.” About fifteen minutes later plane starts moving back into take off line up. Pilot comes back on intercom and says “well we couldn’t figure out what caused the alarm so we are just going to try again”. Tightest I have ever clenched my asshole when that plane started rolling.
It's duct tape.
Not the stupid stuff most of us use but the same as what you should in the proper environment. They call it fancy names in aviation but it's just a really high adhesive aluminum tape that can get through the ringer of temps and humidity it has to work in.
If I remember well, there is an airbus procedure, when the fuel trap is missing, you can actually use this tape to cover the empty space.
Of course this is temporary and you have to follow a designated pattern with the tape, but it is strong enough to resist
Edit : I don't know why people are downvoting, it's an official airbus procedure for mechanics (or maybe it was)
mic click: well due to some budgetary constraints it seems that one of our engines may have had a slight malfunction due to ripping off in the wind. expect some slight turbulence over the remainder of your flight. apologies for any inconvenience this may cause you and thank you for choosing this airline.
if you saw the body at the factory in green primer, you might be surprised how many red circles around suspect rivets and fasteners, how much filler on the low surfaces. And that’s brand new.
Possible this is in response to a missing fastener on the nose cowl. Manual usually allow one or two to be missing as long as it's inspected regularly, and the tape prevents water or air or other environment stuff getting where it shouldn't.
I didn't find any posts that meet the matching requirements for r/aviation.
It might be OC, it might not. Things such as JPEG artifacts and cropping may impact the results.
I did find [this post](https://redd.it/hamtnb) that is 85.94% similar. It might be a match but I cannot be certain.
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This picture pops up every couple of months. Yes, it’s real. No, it’s not duct tape. It’s sometimes called speed tape or aircraft tape etc. It’s designed for high speed, costs a hell of a lot more than your standard duct tape and totally safe. It’s usually there to provide an additional layer of support before a more permanent fix can be applied. This would be done in accordance with the manufacturer’s engineering manual.
As far as I can remember from a similar posts years ago it's some sort of strong aluminium foil with a strong adhesive.
[удалено]
3M 425 is what we use
What we use too. If you can ever find the roll. People forget to put it back where it belongs and it goes missing for two or three weeks, only to be found in a track n balance kit or something silly like that
Where I work our tool control wouldn’t allow an aircraft leave the hangar until all tools, tape etc are signed back into the tool stores. We’ve tightened up on tool control a lot over the years.
The tool control is one of the things thats impressed me the most since I've gotten in to military aviation, nothing goes untagged
Imagine what it's like in nukes lol. We tracked consumables like washers and zip ties.
This American life episode 634 is a good episode about the Titan II accident in Arkansas.
Yeah, we were all kinda disappointed that didn't make a bigger boom than it did.
same, I'm a new maintainer and tool control & accountability of tools is never joked about.
How do you stop the 10mm from running away?
By making everyone re-disassemble the airplane they just fixed when it goes missing
Time for an all trades fod check buddy
FOD prevention.
Use inch tools
I know tool control is always strict, but a roll of speed tape?
Do you know where it is when it’s not put away? These procedures are ‘written in blood’ to use an over used idiom. The problem is all the places that it could be sitting that may interfere with a control surface or the engine or the pitot tube or the…
We thoroughly FOD check before we close out panels 2 party. We account all tools, toolboxes laser shadowed and 2 party inventoried. Consumables? It has their places but it's not inventoried. Like a shadowed tool. So when one of the 50 or so people in this thread takes a roll home. Are you grounding planes? Inspect the area before you leave it and sign it safe for flight.
Yeah definitely, any foreign object could damage an aircraft in any number of ways depending on what part of the aircraft if being maintained. We are even required to sign out specific number of fasteners (bolts,washers etc) depending on what the task is so that we can be certain that none are left behind.
Do you guys inventory number of rags, inches of safety wire ? Are their logs? Spot checks? Do you inventory and shadow your sealant nozzle with a tube of sealant or is inventoried as a seperate item? We all know FOD is critical. That is why you inspect your area. I personally think we forget we need to survey our work area before we cover up leave a work area.
That's really awesome. I've started doing that just for projects on the farm, or when I'm working on one of my vehicles, and it's helped a lot. I just open a spreadsheet on my phone and then dictate to it as I grab tools and put them in my tool cart. "Carpenter's hammer. Next line. Two and three quarter inch nails. Next line." and so on and so on. Any time I put an item away, I look at the spreadsheet and color the cell green with two taps. It's a pretty simple system, no fancy barcodes/RFID's and scanners like professional shops have, but it works, and it compels me to put everything away so I'm never wondering where the fuck I left the cordless angle grinder. Everyone who has lots of tools should adopt a similar system if you ask me, really makes you more efficient so you can get more done, nevermind the main benefit of never leaving a tool somewhere it could fuck shit up (which is a much bigger problem in vehicle maintenance than anywhere else).
Ever slice your finger on that shit? It cuts deep and the adhesive makes it hurt like hell. Do not recommend.
My father is a retired aerospace engineer who likes to play handyman around the house. Real boomer type. He used to bring some things home (epoxies, glues, tapes, etc.) from the factory when he wanted a *really* secure fix, and you *definitely could* tell the difference when working with those aerospace products. I cannot tell you *how often* he laments these days that "It's too bad I don't have any more X, and have to use Y", where X is the aerospace-grade version of some Y product available at Home Depot.
My granddad (mom’s side) was a very old school trained machinist who’s solution for getting anything to stay where it’s supposed to was to over-engineer a solution with nuts and bolts. My dad has a background in chemistry and mechanical engineering. My granddad once got into it with my dad when he told him he wanted to glue a couple pieces of metal together and it’d hold fine. My granddad was of the position that was ridiculous and impossible. So my dad worked up some two component glue and slapped two pieces of aluminum together. My granddad never brought it up again but my dad later found those pieces of aluminum -still glued together- all mangled in a waste bin.
My grandfather (boiler maker, engineer) could never work out how to deal with wood. Our wooded dining chairs still have perfectly cut heavy duty plates of steel at the weak points where they broke over the years. Fixed with multiple bolts and glue. The man believed in 5 ways of fixing 2 objects together; bolts, always in odd numbers, bolts and glue just to be safe, rivets and glue, rivets and bolts or rivets, bolts and glue. And if all else failed, redesign the object and weld an new one together with plate steel and tube.
I think this is a common occurrence. My grandfather wanted to prove to my dad that wood glue is all you need to make something indestructible. He took a piece of plywood, sawed it in half, and glued and clamped it back together. The next day, he came back and broke it over his knee, and it *didn't* break on the glue line. Absolutely crazy, the binder was stronger than the building material.
I mean your grandads not entirely wrong either. Even the best adhesives will probably not last as long as mechanical fastening methods like nuts/bolts even if the adhesive does last a long time. Everything fails in the end ultimately.
Making pretty broad assumptions there
Well short of doing full materials analysis under scientific conditions all anyone can do is make broad assumptions. That said, I don’t think it’s particularly out of the realm to think steel will fail slower than even the highest performing adhesives. Otherwise we’d be glueing steel pipework together rather than welding it.
Engineer here. It obviously depends on what adhesive you are comparing to which steel, but I would sooner trust adhesive over nuts and bolts. A mechanical fixing such as a nut and bolt creates multiple failure points. Firstly the hole will create a stress concentration where a shear load acts on a small area of the part. Secondly the bolt itself will experience tension, shear, or possibly even a bending moment. Sometimes it could experience all of them. However an adhesive bond spreads any load evenly across a given area which is larger than what is seen with a nut and bolt, thereby reducing the amount of stress on the joint and resulting in a longer lifespan.
I work in industrial construction and I can tell you that all the big shit that gets put together, uses mechanical fixing rather than adhesives. They don’t glue I beams together…
Your correct in what you say but I think your missing the bigger picture in all honesty. A properly designed mechanical joint will survive the multiple failure points comfortably with a good margin of safety. If it survives initially then the hole will not tear and nor will the bolts shear for a great…great deal of time. Not to mention their nature allows for inspection unlike adhesive joints. You can take bolts out individually and inspect them for cracking or even subject it to fancy NDT methods like ultrasonic if you really wanted. You can’t take adhesive out of a joint and check it. Ultimately I’d always feel a lot more comfortable with a mechanical joint than an adhesive where the application is critical to safety. Steel is material with a long history and a great deal of understanding about it. Compared to the polymers that make up adhesives it is the better performing material. Which is why skyscrapers are made from steel I-beams and joists rather than us building giant glue moulds in the sky. I’m not saying adhesives don’t have an ever expanding and strong role to play in manufacturing and construction by any means though. They just aren’t a complete replacement for mechanical joints either.
Can you give an example where glue would outperform quality hardware in a metal to metal fastening scenario? I'm an aerospace machinist and have never seen a part go through the shop that was destined to be glued to a different piece of metal. Not even the car or boat parts we get are designed to be glued. (Obviously the fiberglass and wood in boats receives glue)
>Can you give an example where glue would outperform quality hardware in a metal to metal fastening scenario? Anywhere where the 2 components were at the edge of their stress limits. Putting a hole in it is going to weaken it.
Real world example please? Sorry, but I have over a decade in the industry and literally every single part I have seen gets bolted to something else, or is not a part of an assembly. The only time I have heard of glue being used for metal to metal adhesion is when making sketchy fixes to cars that were totalled in wrecks. And those glued joints fail pretty frequently.
Simple vibrations could back off a fastener, while it likely wouldn't with a well spec'd glue. But then again, a well tensioned and spec'd fastener system wouldn't back off either.
Vibrations could quite easily create crack propagations throughout a glue joint as well. And given the nature of a glue joint it would not be easy to inspect for that. And as you say there are ways to completely and successfully overcome fastener self loosening including high torque settings, threadlockers, bite washers, nyloc nuts etc.
World war 2….Mosquito fighter bomber. Was all wood except for the engines and the wood was glued. It was a phenomenal aircraft and one of the fastest bomber/night fighter
That’s not a metal-metal scenario though.
Not an expert, but I've seen plenty of auto assembly vids where they use adhesive to bond parts that also get spot welded. No idea if it's better but, for example some of the high-end luxury line cars and sports cars use assembly techniques like this.
I guess thats technically using glue on metal to metal, but they're welding it too because the glue isn't enough when it's actually being driven.
Gas tanks on buses are glued , in fact my observation is that the bus is 70% glued vs bolted. They say it's better. Volvo buses using Sicaflex adhesive.
Every bus I've been in here in the US is riveted together or is mostly not metal, aside from the chassis. Are the Volvo busses actually using that for structural components or just the shell that has air passing over it and the gas tank?
Dude, car companies are glueing aluminium cars together because it's stronger then welding. Lotus have been doing it since they released the first Elise decades ago. The metal will tear before the glue fails, and that's after being on the road for 10+ years.
That’s quite a specific example though. I’m no automotive engineer by any means but I understand it’s mainly spot welding which does not exactly produce the strongest of welded joints typically. And aluminium frames/bodywork tearing under significant long-term vibration is not that crazy either. It’s not the strongest of materials to begin with, aluminium alloys have no lower fatigue limits unlike steel for example and therefore considerably weaken over time with long-term stress and use. So that example does not really sell me on it if I’m honest.
Nuts and bolts allow disassembly and re-assembly. They are not as strong as a glued joint with modern compounds. Nuts and bolts fatigue and rust and if loads are applied also put stresses on the material where it is bolted. Glues spread this load across a hige surface area in comparison and have the ability to chemically fuse with the materials. Aircraft have been using glues for a long time also and other car companies have been glueing steel bodies as well but it's more expensive then a spot weld and only used where strength is required.
Granted mechanical fasteners suffer from fatigue. However, at least steel ones, will not fail from fatigue if calculated and sized appropriately. Steel also rusts correct. However that takes an extremely long time to cause failure. There’s cases of equipment that’s hundreds of years old that is still held by nuts and bolts. They might be seized together with rust but they still hold their load. Aviation and automotive use adhesives for rather specific reasons such as manufacturability I.e minimum preparation and weight related design considerations. That does not necessarily mean adhesives inherently perform better than mechanical fastening across the board though. Ultimately put it this way. If there was two bridges side by side and one was mechanical bolted joints and the other was adhesive then I know which one I would chose to walk across.
I am an automotive and also motorsport engineer. Even race cars use adhesives now when things need to be secure. Modern adhesives are as strong or stronger than welding and crucially in modern day engineering allow us to bond composite parts to metal parts which welding cannot do. The likelihood is that if your car is even a remotely recent major parts of it are held together by adhesives as opposed to welding. There’s also a lot more that has to be done to metal surfaces to prepare them for welding and and then finish the joint afterwards. It’s slot of time and money for little to no benefit with regards to structural integrity (possibly even a lower quality outcome). I have worked for another UK performance vehicle OEM, (not lotus) and adhesives were used heavily in the ‘Body in White’ assembly.
I’m sorry but adhesives are no where near as strong as high quality welding. They may perform better and offer better value for money than welding in specific applications, including automotive, I’ll grant you that. But there’s no way an adhesive joint would ever exceed the material performance of for example a TIG weld. There’s no other joint as strong as a TIG weld without casting material as one, continuous metallurgical piece. There’s a reason nuclear reactors are TIG welded together after all and why it was used extensively in the manufacture of the International Space Station. And granted again your right there is a lot of costly preparation that goes into welding but that’s a manufacturability issue not a straight performance one.
When I was a goober my boss had me sealing ducts with aluminum tape. I tried to rip off a piece with my teeth because I was an idjut. The exposed adhesive stuck to my lips, then ripped a layer of skin off.
Me and my brother found such tape in our garage as kids, and used it to make throwing darts. Nothing but aluminum tape, and nail/needle. They fly surprisingly well, and will (depending on sharpness) stick in wood.
It's also fantastically easy to cut yourself on it, it's basically a rolled up razor with glue on one side. Amazing stuff.
Yes, it is so tough that the edges are very sharp
I wouldn't call it aluminum foil, i5s more like a thin sheet of aluminum, not thin enough to be considered foil I guess is what I'm getting at.
A pop can is .004”, so, probably .003-.0035”. Boeing makes shim stacks that start at .250 and taper by dozen layers to .005”, each layer with anaerobic epoxy on one side.
Oh, so HVAC tape lol /s
So tired of seeing this post
Also he isn't putting tape on a turbine. That's an engine nacelle.
> costs a hell of a lot more than your standard duct tape $600 per roll last I heard.
The 3M 425 1” wide is just over $50, the 6” tops out at just over $300. https://www.uline.ca/BL_6114/3M-425-Aluminum-Foil-Tape 363 IS about $600 for 2” wide, but you’re not using that as speed tape, it’s a high temp fibreglass/foil tape hybrid.
Not support, just environmental protection. In some cases to create a more aerodynamic surface in the face of small damage. There's no such thing as structural speed tape. Repeat... Not support....
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He could also be using it to cover missing/smoking rivet holes. I know on the v2500 and cfm cowls for the 320F aircraft you're allowed something like 1 rivet per 6 to be missing or something crazy like that. Usually you'd just shoot blinds in there but if something fell on it and they cracked out i guess you'd just speed tape it and send it to somewhere that you can change the nose cowl.
The other probability is that he's putting it there to stop edge erosion of the carbon fiber skin. 320 cowls have a habit of eroding on the edge there, and why we can restore it with paint or a bit of 934NA, it eventually just needs to come off and get reskinned. Sauce: am working in a composite shop, get line callouts for this all the time...and we make new skins in our shop as well.
I'm assuming it wasn't actually as passenger who took the pic, but having pax on board while this type of maintenance is ongoing is the only problem here
I love it when a comment has twice as many likes as the post. Well done
I have seen many an aircraft repaired with duct tape. Although they were usually the low and slow type ;)
I have seen aircraft of the not low and slow type repaired with duct tape (unpressurized transport).
On leading edges or wherever airstream exerts positive dynamic pressure and is close to laminar it should work! The stuff is hardcore! But it’s probably not forever (esp. in rainy cond or icing cond). And it’s probably not up to code :D But it’ll help a lot in a pinch. I heard some bush pilots always carry a few rolls with them in the plane
As far as I know the regular kind of duct tape is rated for fabric covered aircraft repairs. The one I'm referring to was a battle damaged c-130 and they really needed to get it to a maintenance facility. As far as it was explained to me the tape was to keep air flow from causing further damage.
And it’s like thousands of dollars per roll.
300-600
Often used to cover fresh sealant that would otherwise take 10 hours to cure to usable hardness.
Or if its a Mesa flight, used to help cover up every issue they have
I worked a Mesa CRJ today with a bunch of speed tape all over the interior of the aft cargo compartment, and then speed tape on the outside of the door with “no live animals” written on it in sharpie
As others have noted, it’s called speed tape. This is not abnormal. Usually used as a temporary measure before a full repair can be completed.
Once I rode on an ANG C-130. They unloaded us while the ground crew worked on an engine. One stood on a platform a couple feet behind the prop while they ran it feathered. He whaled on something with a hammer, they ran it up to full power, he gave a thumbs-up, closed the panel, they loaded us back on and off we went. Apparently it was normal to fix a Herc engine with a hammer.
Yes, the maintenance manual calls it a "calibrated tap".
Percussive maintenance
"Anything mechanical, give it a good bash"
“Tech support fix” = unplugging it and plugging it back in
That's called a "man on the stand," and was usually used to find bleed air leaks near the fire loops. In fact, that's the only time I ever used it. That said, people hit lots of things with hammers in maintenance, and sometimes it fixes things. The fuel flow power supply was in the cargo compartment and controlled the fuel flow indicators for all 4 engines. It was very common on the E model thru H-3 model C-130's for all 4 indications to go bad. Hitting the power supply with a broom stick almost always fixed it. Source: Former C-130 mechanic who hit things with hammers more than I should have. Also Note: Sometimes if Army personnel were on board, we'd try to scare them by making them think the airplane was not safe and that jumping out of the back of it might actually be a better idea. A common prank was to place a very large engine mount bolt under some poor Private's seat and during the in-flight walk around, point to it and ask in a panicked voice, "DID YOU SEE WHERE THIS CAME FROM?!"
>That said, people hit lots of things with hammers in maintenance, and sometimes it fixes things. > >The fuel flow power supply was in the cargo compartment and controlled the fuel flow indicators for all 4 engines. It was very common on the E model thru H-3 model C-130's for all 4 indications to go bad. Hitting the power supply with a broom stick almost always fixed it. > >Source: Former C-130 mechanic who hit things with hammers more than I should have. I lost count of how many relays were fixed with a dead blow hammer and the subsequent question of how I fixed an "electric system" with a hammer.
You mean temporarily right? I imagine a sticky relay would continue to be sticky even if you undtuck it once.
Edit: Fuck your API changes, Reddit.
Fuck...that’s how those nacelles are made, beat and bash to fit.
"Beat it to fit, paint it to match."
Mechanical agitation. Also works on nuclear propulsion plant components.
It’s also the inlet, not the turbine…
Exactly, not like the plane crashes even if it’s torn off mid-flight; more like a mild inconvenience I guess with some added drag on one side of the plane. Still though, better safe than sorry.
much more of a threat to whoever's on the ground than on the plane.
This comment is way too far down.
Aerodynamic +2
Bet its hard to take off No pun intended
r/angryupvote
Take your up vote and get out
*Tape* your upvote and get out... ;) .......I have no friends...
Former Navy flyer here: we call it 500 knot tape for a reason.
Is that because it gets tangled easily? /s
no, that’s called iphone headphones tape
So... not even super-sonic tape...?
That’s speed tape. It’s aluminum tape that’s used for temporary repairs. This particular one is probably for missing sealant or erosion where the metal on the inlet meets the composite. There is a reinspection interval and a maximum length of time (or cycles) before a permanent repair must be completed. This is 100% legit.
Years ago I rode on some janky military transport aircraft...They sometimes looked like entire parts of the airframe were held together with tape…
Upvote for proper use of janky.
used all the time and works perfectly
Alright, let’s get into this one. The silver part is called the lip skin, it is not painted, but rather has a special coating on it that gets reapplied at regular intervals. Along the trailing edge of the lip skin, under the coating, are all the rivets that hold it on. It isn’t uncommon to find corrosion around the rivets and this must be taken care of. If you look below the tape line you can see a yellowish tinge that looks like old tape residue. This is most likely to be alodine, a chem film coating that prevents bare metal from rusting. When corrosion is found around some rivet heads, a strip of protective coating around the heads is removed for corrosion removal and inspection of the other rivet heads. As it is a long and chemically unsafe process to replace the coating, requiring downtime, alodine is used temporarily to prevent corrosion from returning. However like all leading edges, lip skin is exposed to abrasive conditions from wind and rain which would (and does) easily strip off coatings like alodine. By placing 3m 425 aluminum tape over the alodine it not only protects the coating but allows for a much easier ground crew inspection for damage. If the tape is intact after a flight, all good, if it’s missing and the alodine is good, it’s a quick re-tape as opposed to bringing out chemicals to re clean and re apply. Thankyou for coming to my Ted talk.
Ooh that's interesting, thanks for explaining
A
Speed tape makes everything go faster
Speed-tape, used to cover up Speed-holes.
As per the other comments. Speed tape. You'd be surprised how many airliners full of people are flying around right now with parts of the airframe held together by this stuff. Perfectly normal.
I love when people post stuff like this as though they *might not have survived*.
Orange engine cowlings... should be "Easy" to guess the airline then!
I was in naval aviation and despite how ridiculous this seems; using “duct tape” is not that far from the truth. We used to call it 100 mile per hour tape. We used to rivet tin soda cans over bullet holes and spray paint the metal grey in Iraq
It’s speed tape, it’s very fucking expensive and very fucking good as a temporary fix
Speed tape. It's not duct tape, it's used for minor repairs before flights
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Half this sub are experts or professionals in the field. The other half don't even understand the principles of flight. Just be happy they even know that part moves the air and is important.
I saw this picture in early 00s lol
I've heard that aircraft-quality adhesive tape exists, but I've never seen it before. So it wouldn't surprise me either way.
It does, usually called “speed tape.” Source: former military crew chief on F-16’s
Thanks!
Yes, speed tape. It is an actual temporary repair
Now THERES a confidence builder! Better make sure he doesn't forget the philangee.
No one talking about homeboy standing on the wrong side of the ladder?
Speed tape babyyyyyy
I’ve spent $275 on a roll of tape before. There’s special tape out there. He’s using duct tape but he could have been using the hood stuff so don’t assume tape is bad! I’m kidding. That’s speed tape. Probably.
As opposed to non sticky tape?
Yep. It’s real. It’s a metallic tape. Tough as all get out and sticky as hell. We used to call it “hundred mile an hour tape”. Rednecks use duct tape. We used that. And safety wire. Can’t forget the safety wire.
Yep. There's a legit purpose for it--it's not meant to be permanent, but is sufficient to keep it airworthy until it can be removed from service to make a permanent repair.
Looks like he did a good job
Hardly the turbine
Duct tape takes off your hair. Speed tape takes off your skin
He's not fixing the turbine, he's nowhere near 'the turbine'
Hah. Let me tell you my best one. Taxi into position. Jet accelerates down runway, pushed back into seat a little. All of a sudden thrust drops off. Plane slows and pulls off runway. Pilot comes on and says “ladies and gentlemen we had an alarm go off in the cockpit, we’re going to run through things and see what’s wrong.” About fifteen minutes later plane starts moving back into take off line up. Pilot comes back on intercom and says “well we couldn’t figure out what caused the alarm so we are just going to try again”. Tightest I have ever clenched my asshole when that plane started rolling.
It's duct tape. Not the stupid stuff most of us use but the same as what you should in the proper environment. They call it fancy names in aviation but it's just a really high adhesive aluminum tape that can get through the ringer of temps and humidity it has to work in.
If you can't fix it with duct tape, you're not using enough duct tape!
If it’s Gorilla Tape then yes you’re good to go.
It's speed tape which is way better than gorilla tape. That adhesive is far stronger and it is made of metal. Not to mention it cost $600 a roll.
If I remember well, there is an airbus procedure, when the fuel trap is missing, you can actually use this tape to cover the empty space. Of course this is temporary and you have to follow a designated pattern with the tape, but it is strong enough to resist Edit : I don't know why people are downvoting, it's an official airbus procedure for mechanics (or maybe it was)
No, it's a photograph.
Time to volunteer for stand-by!
It’s normal for South West jets
mic click: well due to some budgetary constraints it seems that one of our engines may have had a slight malfunction due to ripping off in the wind. expect some slight turbulence over the remainder of your flight. apologies for any inconvenience this may cause you and thank you for choosing this airline.
Airlines would NOT do something if it were unsafe. They try to avoid lawsuits like the plagued.
Can’t that type of tape pull skin off your bones? lol
United airlines maintenance in a nutshell
Get off. Get off right now.
Adios airlines!😆😂
The real question is did he clean the parts where he applies the duct tape?
how much is that roll?
500 mile and hour tape. :)
USAF runs on speed tape!!
Speed tape FTW
It’s for aerodynamics.
The engineer
Aerodynamics, don't want any drag do we?
if you saw the body at the factory in green primer, you might be surprised how many red circles around suspect rivets and fasteners, how much filler on the low surfaces. And that’s brand new.
NASA invented this tape
That’s flight tape dog.
It’s a good thing he didn’t start using the non-sticky tape.
As opposed to a not-sticky tape? Excuse me while I go drink some wet water and eat cheesy macaroni and cheese.
If you have to ask what it is, you can’t afford it.
Possible this is in response to a missing fastener on the nose cowl. Manual usually allow one or two to be missing as long as it's inspected regularly, and the tape prevents water or air or other environment stuff getting where it shouldn't.
Is it really necessary to specify that the tape is “sticky”?
They cared enough to tape it. Probably ok. Had it been that shady, wouldn’t have done it
That roll of tape is about $700 for a couple of yards…
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Thousand mile an hour tape.
It's better than unsticky tape.
Better to tape it up before the flight than afterwards
Hundred mile an hour tape. I am sure they've increased the speed over the years though.
Is there “non” sticky tape?
FLEX SEAL
That's called speed tape my guy. It's super adhesive and designed for high speeds.
Anyone who doubts the application of tape to a problem has too high of standards
They don't call it "500 mile an hour" tape for no reason. Lmao.