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[epapa]

In the most recent Beartracks quarterly, a story is told about a landing gone wrong and a crash from a sudden crosswind. The wing broke at the splice. I have pictures of our airport many years ago when a tornado balled a dozen Cessna's like tin foil but not one wing failed. Am I the only one concerned?

[jaredyates]

I'm not especially concerned. Have you read the old article about testing a wing to failure? If not, I'll be glad to send it to you.

[epapa]

No I haven't. Please send it when you have time. Thanks.

[EricP]

The splice is also where the wing strut attaches. So it may just be a matter of the strut adding more strength to the inside of the wing. It may be more to do with the strut than the splice itself. I think if a force was applied to the wingtip then the worst bending point would be where the strut attaches. However, that is not how the wing works when flying. So this failure does not predict how a wing would fail in flight in my opinion.

[Battson]

Something has to fail first when you exceed stress design limits! Let's not be alarmist...

Based on the load the thing is designed to, and how the load is applied, it will probably fail in a different place each time.
You could ask the same question but insert any part of the wing into where you wrote splice, and it wouldn't make any difference. I see absolutely no need for concern.

[bway]

I have seen two Cessna ground loops. The first was a 170, and the second a 150 TD conversion. In both cases, the airplanes rolled up on the outside wing tip an bent the wing at the intersection of the strut and wing. Neither actually "broke", but they were bent at about a 45 degree angle. They have to fail somewhere, and the greatest leverage would be at the strut intersection. Bob