This year’s annual club outing to Hahnenmoos in June was great. We spent many hours flying in excellent weather, especially at my favourite flying spot Luegli. With many flying hours unfortunately also the risks of damage increase – especially landing on alpine slopes. I misjudged the landing of my Chocofly DG800 after a few hours of flying in Luegli and came in too fast on a down-sloping hill. During the landing the plane’s wing caught on a lump of grass, causing the plane to twist in the last few meters of the landing and the tail boom of the DG800 snapped in two. Fortunately it was a clean break and the plane had no significant further damage.

In my collection of cardboard tubes I found one that was approximately the size of the tail boom. I covered this with cling film and then laminated a carbon sleeve around it (covering it with peel ply so that it’s nice and tight and is also easier to laminate into the fuselage). Once the resin was cured I cut the sleeve across so that it perfectly fit the inside of both sides of the tail boom. I then epoxied this sleeve into the plane – taking care that the tail was exactly in the right place. After letting this cure I added a few bits of 50gr glass to close any remaining gaps, together with some resin thickened with micro-balloons and finished it off with a layer of 50gr glass all around the repair. After lots of sanding – primer – sanding I spray painted it with 2 component paint.

The DG 800 flies like a dream again.