Warbird Information Exchange

There's some lighter scuffing under the big scratch, too. From the details in the skin's reflections, it looks like this is on the fuselage with the left side of the photo being forward.

My guess would be somebody took a short cut between the fuselage and the nacelle, maneuvered closer to the fuse to avoid a propeller blade on the way out on the other side, and this is the end result.

Having worked on a variety of twins over the years with wing mounted engines, I've seen the "between the fuselage and engine nacelle" short cut taken a few times. Since airplanes generally get pointy at the back, there's more room to drive so that's the side most people will approach from. Any time I've seen it done, I asked the driver to never do that again. It just isn't worth the 1.5 seconds saved.

Depending on the depth of the scratch (it looks pretty deep) blending it out wouldn't be feasible as the scratch will be through the cladding, and the remaining thickness might not be sufficient after the blending was done.

I am not familiar with the term "blending" a polished aircraft aluminum skin. The scratch has dented and stretched the skin. As a polished skin it cannot be repaired.

What everyone is missing here is that the skins will have to be replaced. The airplane will have to be jig braced in some fashion before the old skins are drilled out. It will be a lengthy process and the new skins will not match the originals in appearance.

The structural repair manual should give blend limits for scratches and gouges. You basically sand out the scratches.

Unless this aircraft was completely reskinned at some point I would suspect there are plenty of panels with similar injuries.

I'm no B-25 expert but I doubt you'd have to put the airplane in a jig to replace one skin. Plenty of aircraft have been successfully reskinned one panel at a time.

Polishing is, in essence, the same as "Blending", just on a smaller scale. To remove a deep scratch from any kind of material without leaving any (or much) evidence, an area much larger than the scratch will have to be worked. When the work is finished, the material's surface will transition smoothly down to the where the deepest point of the scratch was, and then back up again to the original surface level.

On polished skin, the blended area could polished again to match the surrounding area, but there's also considerations to be made about corrosion prevention and remaining thickness. The B-25 Structural Repair Manual may give patch repairs for something like this too.

Considering what a rare and special airplane a B-25 is these days, I agree with the suggestion that the owners may decide to go with a skin replacement.

This is all just speculation by a stranger on the internet, of course. Without knowing the dimensional details of the damage, and how important North American Aviation says that particular skin section is, an appropriate repair can't really be decided on.

$30,000 wouldn't be spent on fixing it, if it were my airplane. I'd buy $30,000 worth of gas and take a lot of veterans and kids for a ride. I'd just leave the scratch the way it is. Then I'd go the rest of my life telling and showing what some dumbass in a golf cart did to my airplane.

Exactly...

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It would be a good lesson on ramp safety - as long as the scratch is just cosmetic and not a more serious issue that leads to corrosion. It would be a good example of showing people as well as training ramp workers at these kinds of events the importance of being careful around valuable warbirds and how that is only cosmetic, but if it was hit harder or in different places it could have been worse.

I can believe the cost more of $30K to fix though now that I saw a video of some guy in England the other day who had his Aston Martin deliberately scratched by a jealous cab driver. The scratch was almost the length of the car, but the owner said it would cost seveal thousand to fix.

New skins can be fitted that will exactly match the removed skins -that is not a problem. Besides the corrosion issue the real concern is your giving somewhere for a crack to start from . Whilst blending can be done I would suspect that the depth of the scratch exceeds the allowable damage depth limitations of the skin. Whilst quite a large skin it doesnt appear to be technically difficult and shouldnt be anywhere near 30K.

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You're right, it would cost several grand to fix that just from the description. I handled a Bentley claim recently and the final bill was about as insane as you'd all probably imagine it to be. I didn't even blink at the cost. I even paid to have a Italian sports car shipped back to Italy for repairs you'd be able to do locally for any other kind of vehicle.
If I keyed a basic import car here in the states about 12", that's about 500-600 clams right there. It takes more work to fix something like that than most people think. Another good reason to have good comp and collision coverage on your vehicle as few poeple have that kind of money just laying around...

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Paint the plane OD green. Problem solved...

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I don't think this is an issue of airworthiness. I think the cost is to make the plane whole again, i.e. return it to the condition it was before the incident.

If you were to factor in a round trip flight to Aero Trader in Chino for the repair, it probably would cost $30K!

If an aircraft skin is damaged in any way its always going to be an airworthiness issue! Its the aircraft's structure !

"If an aircraft skin is damaged in any way its always going to be an airworthiness issue! Its the aircraft's structure !"

Um, NO! You guys are killing me!

There you go with those negative waves man!!! ... I just fly em, I don't know what makes em work!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5cL-h3Pj1o

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