[Rob L]

Rob, as far as I know the PA38 doesn't have a spar carry-through, the main spar is joined in the center and bolted to the fuselage. ...Brooklands

You are quite right, Brooklands and my apologies for any confusion to fellow Forumites. Many low-wing aircraft have a fixed fuselage "frame" [or carry-through] to which each wing attaches independently, like a Pa28 (compared with spars that bolt together in the middle like a Pa32) , I sometimes get confused which is which!

I recently got involved in the dismantling of a Pa38 Tomahawk. The bolts that hold the two wings together are Big and Tough; and the ones holding the fuselage to the wing are less so!

Sorry for any confusion.
Rob L

[AlanC]

What I really wanted to know, was if the standard stall recovery was the same, given the reputation and report statistics of the aircraft. (AlanC - sorry that was a typo in my SSR description, I meant aileron not rudder to roll wings level after recovery if a wing drop occurred).

No worries some misconceptions do exist about stalling/recoveries, so always worth correcting when they pop up. The good news is that the Standard Stall Recovery is indeed standard across all conventional aircraft, since it focuses on reducing alpha to get the wing flying again, then power to add energy to reduce potential height losses. The attitudes achieved with different stall behaviours are irrelevant until the aircraft is unstalled and can be flown out of the unusual attitude!

Spinning, on the other hand, does require more POH study since spin recovery techniques do vary from aircraft to aircraft to ensure recovery and reduce height loss... Most of them are reasonably similar, but with individual variations between types.

[aerofurb]

The 11,000 hr life applies to the ‘wing and associated structure’.

By ‘associated structure’ it is taken as the frames in the fuselage that the wings bolt onto.

Although we sold an elderly PA38 from the fleet to someone who was convinced that the ‘associated structure’ was the main undercarriage legs, so he planned to change the wings and legs only. I think his engineer would advise him differently.

It is a dockyard job to do the life extension mod and probably isn’t financially viable unless the maintenance company owns the aircraft. I can’t remember how many extra hours it gives you, certainly not another 11k.

Airworthiness Limitations are mandatory items (as are Airworthiness Directives) and are listed in Chapter 4 of a Maintenance Manual.

There are other lifed items on the PA38 such as pitch trim system springs, rudder hinge and fin forward attachment plate.

[Morten]

I think I go with Graham’s thinking rather than Morten’s hypothesis.

As well you might.
I realised that I have spent quite a lot of time in front of the T-tail of the DA40 .
And that the predominant force on the fin/rudder assembly is probably the sideways component of the propwash which, with a clockwise rotating Lycosaurus and a rudder/fin above the thrustline, will always be pushing the tail to the right, nose to the left, irrespective of the placement of the horizontal section.
However, I do still believe that the T-tail should make it worse than a lower tailplane, probably accounting for the increased tendency of the Tomahawk (and the DA 40 which has small negative tailplane winglets to boot!) to yaw off to the left.

Don't believe everything you read on the internet

[patowalker]

Nice picture of the spiralling slipstream on a Corsair here.