I trust it

I have worked exclusively with aircraft aluminums and other materials for 33 years in the heavy aircraft overhaul industry as an airframe SME and can tell you from my experience, the quality control of such alloys is very high, and imperfections dont show often. Usually, defects occur after breach in coatings, or improper machining, ect. The important factors for the experimental aircraft builder are to fully understand the surface conditions of finished edges, corner radii , hole quality,bend radius, and finish application...and even then, its hard to really screw up an RV if the plans are followed. Just my opinion, but I have seen almost every imaginable scenaro that can happen with aluminum, and I will always prefer it over any other material.
 
Guess I should have used a "smiley face".

Those who don't know me might not have realized that starting this thread was purely facetious.

I stumbled across the article showing macro and micro views of many items. One was the polished aluminum. Of course I trust my life to aluminum on almost a daily basis, and certainly will continue to do so. But I couldn't help but marvel at the imperfections of the metal at the micro level.

So the moral of this thread is: The more closely you look at things, generally the more wondrous they become.

Enjoy your flight today.
Jim
N444JT
 
Magnify to the Planck length and the darned thing could vanish before your very eyes! :D
 
now I feel better

now I feel better about a few scratches on mine.

The maximum stress for a 1g load on my spar is equal to about 2 ksi at the outer edge. At a notch or deep scratch adds a stress concentration factor of about 4 so the stress is about 8 ksi. For a repetitive 3g loading 3*8 = 24 ksi. That is OK.
 
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SMRacer said:
Those who don't know me might not have realized that starting this thread was purely facetious.

I stumbled across the article showing macro and micro views of many items. One was the polished aluminum. Of course I trust my life to aluminum on almost a daily basis, and certainly will continue to do so. But I couldn't help but marvel at the imperfections of the metal at the micro level.

So the moral of this thread is: The more closely you look at things, generally the more wondrous they become.

Enjoy your flight today.
Jim
N444JT
Click to expand...

Jim,

Beyond that, why in the world would anyone our age want to pull 6
G's? :)
 
Also, USAF ASSUMES that ALL their airplanes have cracks 0.010"-.020" long in ALL the worst places to have cracks.....
 
I just looked at my spar, it looks good to me. I guess I won't polish it and make it look that bad. :eek:

Gawd!! Never look at important things that close unless you have been forewarned and trained! HAHAHAHAHAHA
 
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