Old fashioned hinge repair.

[Keyrigger]

Hi all:

Today, I was two flights into an afternoon of high flying shenanigans at Crosswinds when the unthinkable happened. I was doing some really big air loops near the end of my flight and had to land so as not to tax the battery. As I began the final approach, I noticed that the elevator was not responding very well causing a bouncy landing and near the end of the slow down on the grass, the Maule bounced up in the air once more time, ground looped, and landing on its back. The elevator had never touched the ground but when I flipped it back up, I found the cause of the poor landing. The right half of the elevator had ripped from the horizontal stabilizer. So much for the rest of the afternoon bouncing back and forth from my helicopters to the Maule.

I waited until tonight to do the repair and broke out my old stash of hinges and the hinge slotting guide from DuBro. I sanded off the remnants of the original hinges, marked out the spacing with a Sharpie, and proceeded to cut the slots for the new "Old" hinges. These use a pin for the hinge point and it has to be bent in and buried so that the pin stays in the hinge. I then drilled a hole in each hinge, put a drop of CA in each hole, drove the toothpick in each hole, and then trimmed off the remaining toothpick. This will not come out anytime soon and may outlast the rest of the plane, lol. Take care.

Don