Duct Tape... Never Leave Home Without It!

[keegs]

Got this in email from my brother. Apparently it's making the rounds but if it's true, it's interesting.




During a private "fly-in" fishing excursion in the Alaskan
wilderness, the chartered pilot and fishermen left a cooler
and bait in the plane... and a bear smelled it.
This is what the bear did to the plane:

The pilot used his radio and had another pilot bring him
2 new tires, 3 cases of duct tape, and a supply of sheet
plastic.
He patched the plane together, and FLEW IT HOME !

Duct Tape? Never Leave Home Without It!

 

[PILOON]

That is factual.

I also have ferried an aircraft that had one wing badly torn by an airport snowblower.
It had 22 holes in the fabric wing!
Duct tape saved the day!
We'd call it 100MPH tape.

PS, the aircraft shown is a Piper Super Cub, very popular bush plane.

Most bush plane operators carry a roll as standard equipment and many an airplane float has had a temporary patch fashioned that way.

Mind you there are different grades of that type of that tape.
The one preferred was dark green in color, probably a mil spec product.

 

[Bird]

We'd call it 100MPH tape.

Both of my brothers lived in Alaska 20 and 25 years, at one time both owned airplanes, one even worked as an airplace salesman for awhile, and he sometimes ferried "broke" planes. So, yep, he told me many years ago that they called it hundred mile an hour tape.

 

[jinman]

What is obvious to me is that there is no damage to the primary flight control surfaces: rudder, elevator, ailerons. The horizontal stabilizer is ripped pretty badly on the right side, but that's nothing that can't be trimmed out in flight. Had there been major damage to the wing/fuel tank, engine, or prop, the repairs would not have been so easy to accomplish. Even so, that's a great job of making do with the low tech approach.

I'd bet the pilot will be making darn sure there are no food items left on his plane ever again. Even so, if bears start identifying airplanes with food, they may not need any smell to attract them.

 

[ray66v]

STC'd duct tape, soon to be found under new items in the Aircraft Spruce catalog, $300/roll ???

 

[JB4310]

How did they fix and inflate the tires, Fixaflat? probably a good idea to keep a couple of cans of that on board. But if a bear tore up a tire don't see how you would fix that in the field. Spares?

My buddy lives in Alaska, he said the bears are particularly fond of snow machine seats, will shred them whenever possible, and go absolutely nuts for the red fuel jugs.

JB.

 

[Jimbrown]

WEll we used lots of tape in Vietnam on planes and helicopters it works just fine.

Something just does not look cricket in those photos though. There appears to be house behind it in one picture and why would a bear flatten the tires. Kinda looks like some body pea-d someone off to me. And no damage to any flight control surface.

 

[Bird]

How did they fix and inflate the tires, Fixaflat? probably a good idea to keep a couple of cans of that on board. But if a bear tore up a tire don't see how you would fix that in the field. Spares?

My buddy lives in Alaska, he said the bears are particularly fond of snow machine seats, will shred them whenever possible, and go absolutely nuts for the red fuel jugs.

JB.

Sometimes you don't fix it right then and there. You fly in a mechanic and spare parts to fix it enough to fly it back to town to repair it right.

And if even that isn't enough . . . one day in Anchorage I saw a helicopter coming in with a small plane dangling below on a cable. I'm told they have a way to quick release one like that and drop it if it gets to swinging too much to control.

 

[Western]

How did they fix and inflate the tires, Fixaflat? probably a good idea to keep a couple of cans of that on board. But if a bear tore up a tire don't see how you would fix that in the field. Spares?

My buddy lives in Alaska, he said the bears are particularly fond of snow machine seats, will shred them whenever possible, and go absolutely nuts for the red fuel jugs.

JB.

Keegs answers that in his post (tires), used his radio to "phone a friend" to get supplies.

I wonder what would make an experienced pilot leave food (attractant) in his aircraft?? I also wonder how much the aerodynamics would have been changed, little ,allot, none.??

I once read that duct tap was originally developed, I think ww11, for patching bullet holes in air craft, but not sure of this..May have been Korea or V Nam..

 

[ray66v]

How did they fix and inflate the tires, Fixaflat? probably a good idea to keep a couple of cans of that on board. But if a bear tore up a tire don't see how you would fix that in the field. Spares?

My buddy lives in Alaska, he said the bears are particularly fond of snow machine seats, will shred them whenever possible, and go absolutely nuts for the red fuel jugs.

JB.

They mentioned that new tires, and the other materials, were flown in.

The damaged tires were huge tundra tires. They are large balloon tires that are very soft, like heavy inner tubes. They make landing on rocky terrain possible. A bear could very easily damage them.

The tires in the final picture are the smaller "normal" tires.