Is there anything duct tape can’t do?
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Looking outside your window from row 24, the last thing you probably want to see is a crew of airline mechanics using tape to fix a wing flap. But that’s exactly what the video below shows.
As Patrick Smith explains in Salon, this isn’t regular duct tape as found at the Home Depot.
What you see is the perfectly safe and legal application of some heavy-duty aluminum bonding tape, called “speed tape” in the mechanic’s lexicon. Depending on what a plane’s maintenance manual stipulates — according to the dictates of the FAA — certain noncritical components can be temporarily patched with this material, embarrassing as it sometimes looks. It’s extremely strong, durable, and able to expand and contract through an extreme range of temperatures.
So tape on planes is okay. Bondo, not so much.
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November 29th, 2006 at 1:52 pm |
This might be perfectly safe, but I think that I’d be insisting that they let me off the plane if I saw this happening.
It’s not so much the tape, as seeing such a repair being made in your presence. Just watching the video was unsettling.
Seeing repairs of this nature right before takeoff (I imagine) would freak out more than a few passengers.
December 3rd, 2006 at 10:17 pm |
About a year ago, a friend told me a very similar story about watching a airline mechanic repair a popped rivet in a 777 with what looked like duct tape. You can hear him tell his story on episode #15 of my TravelCommons podcast
November 5th, 2007 at 10:15 pm |
[…] they should have used the airline-grade duct tape. That oughta fix […]
November 11th, 2007 at 7:18 pm |
I Have had that tape holding my bumper on for about 2 years. Works great!