I found aft bulkhead cracking. Maybe go take a look?

[TheBebo]

I noticed a couple rivets had pulled through the skin on the bottom of the fuselage holding the aft bulkhead in place. Removed the rudder to dig in further and found this. Pretty scary stuff, working the bulkhead replacement now. Mostly an FYI for those flying our fun little 3’s!

 

[rsultzbach]

I noticed a couple rivets had pulled through the skin on the bottom of the fuselage holding the aft bulkhead in place. Removed the rudder to dig in further and found this. Pretty scary stuff, working the bulkhead replacement now. Mostly an FYI for those flying our fun little 3’s!

View attachment 107273

I hope you have contacted Van’s so the engineers there can guide this repair. The aft bulkheads can be replaced. How are fuselage skins looking on either sides of where these bulkheads attach to the skins?

 

[David Paule]

When I built mine, my mentor recommended doubling up that bulkhead, with a flat piece of .063 sandwiched in between. Reforming the flanges of what was to become the forward one of the pair was a bit of work but doable. Recommend shimming instead of totally reforming as that reduces work-hardening of the bends.

Perhaps that will also require relocating the holes in the tailspring fitting, I don't know.

This is a known problem, unfortunately, that has bitten other RV-3 owners. Good luck with your repair!

Dave

 

[JonJay]

Good catch.

 

[Jerry Kraut]

Effect of hard tail-first landing.

 

[Ralph Inkster]

Is that a single bulkhead back there?
Later models have a sandwiched dual bulkhead for tail draggers.
Would be a good idea to incorporate in the repair if not done before.

 

[Norman CYYJ]

Effect of hard tail-first landing.

That looks like a fatigue break after many many landings and probably on not smooth runways.

 

[rv6n6r]

Hm yes I would look into getting that fixed

 

[Mel]

As stated before, this is not uncommon for the -3. Remember this was Van's first full design. Another factor is that a lot of -3s have

experienced a pretty hard aerobatic life. I have a friend that literally wore out a -3 doing aerobatics. I repaired the tail section more than once.

After I doubled those last 2 bulkheads, they held up much better.

 

[oaklandaviator]

Ours has this area beefed up as well. Extra skins under the fuselage in that area also. We treat the tailwheel similar to how people treat the nosewheel on A models and are gentle with it. On our RV’s we try not to do tailwheel first landings which on many other tailwheel planes isn’t a big concern.