Wentworth's 310Q on ebay

I made a hard landing once that was so hard I thought I broke something. 3 A&Ps dropped everything to crawl all over the plane for several hours. No discrepancies, even the ELT hadn't tripped. My point is in the GA world, what constitutes a "hard landing" is subjective.

So Wentworth's vaugue mention of a hard landing only muddies the waters. I do wonder if the shop is practicing some CYA.
 
I saw that ad, as well. Interesting, but... no.
 
Two mid-time engines for $19K, airplane-shaped test stand included.
 
So many words to describe an unairworthy airframe ?
 
And looking at it that way wonder how many of those parts could be used in my engines...

Probably not enough, moving on!
 
310's are not at risk of tipping over when one tank is full and the other isn't. the tanks don't have to be filled together, like i understand early learjets do.
 
Out-smarting Wentworth on an airplane trade is harder than cheating a trading-post Indian.
 
Richard said:
That ad has been up for a while. Care to hazard a guess for the cause of the doubler damage?
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Good question. If it was a hard enough landing to cause damage to the wing spar, I'd expect it to set off an ELT and/or damage the landing gear significantly. 310s don't have the strongest landing gear in the world. Severe turbulence might be a more likely cause.

Richard said:
Because it has tip tanks, filling tanks must be done in a specific order. Also, weight imbalance tween tanks.
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The 310 I fly doesn't. I fill it in whichever order makes the most sense for how I'm fueling it - so did the previous owner for 25 years. I doubt that the Q is different in that regard. Even still, that's a whopping 420 lbs a side - not a huge amount.
 
I wasn't thinking of tipping like what Tony mentioned nor a port/starboard imbalance like what Ted mentioned. I was thinking of how fueling the aux tanks before the tips could place stress on the spar attacment.
 
Richard said:
What makes it unairworthy? What cost to correct the condition?
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The Annual not being signed off. Depends!! Might be easy, but then again you might not find anyone to sign off with out pulling wings and doing major work...$$$
 
flyingmoose said:
The Annual not being signed off. Depends!! Might be easy, but then again you might not find anyone to sign off with out pulling wings and doing major work...$$$
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Yes, I noticed the annual is not signed off. Digging deeper, why isn't the annual signed off? Because of the tears in the doubler....

What caused those tears? It's an WAG the spar is deformed or damaged. It also is a WAG a so-called "hard landing" caused the tears. I thought I'd ask those more knowledgeable than I for opinion.
 
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Richard said:
What makes it unairworthy?
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The fact that the IA refused to sign it off as such after the annual.

What cost to correct the condition?
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One milllliiion bucks.

According to the seller, about 60% of the value of the plane.

The problem is what you find once you take that doubler off, or look carefully at the landing gear attachments......
 
Richard said:
Yes, I noticed the annual is not signed off. Digging deeper, why isn't the annual signed off? Because of the tears in the doubler....

What caused those tears? It's an WAG the spar is deformed or damaged. It also is a WAG a so-called "hard landing" caused the tears. I thought I'd ask those more knowledgeable than I for opinion.
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I think you would be hard pressed to find a plane that damaged only the spar fittings on a hard landing.
 
After a hard look I might make a short ferry hop then repair.

My first call would be to Williams about repair costs if I was considering the plane.
 
Doesn't have to be a hard landing. Aluminum is known to crack for no good reason at all. This is not the first and not the last 310 that has cracks in the structure.
 
weilke said:
Doesn't have to be a hard landing. Aluminum is known to crack for no good reason at all. This is not the first and not the last 310 that has cracks in the structure.
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True, this appears to me to be a typical fatigue crack at 7k hours things like this appear.

I'd be more interested in seeing the wear marks on the spar attachments. because the doubler seems to be touching the spar. If it is simple vibration will crack the doubler.
 
Skylane81E said:
I think you would be hard pressed to find a plane that damaged only the spar fittings on a hard landing.
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The way I read the story in the ad was the ins co wanted a date. The "hard landing" fixed a date.

  • This provides relief to the shop who did the prior annual since the date occured after that inspection.
  • This allows the owner to collect from the ins co.
  • This provides relief to the pilot against possible FAA enforcement.
Did a hard landing even occur? How hard was it?

Reading the story, even after the current shop is made aware of a hard landing, they still won't touch the aircraft. Anyway, all I want to know is what could have caused the tears in the doubler? Maybe some fat ass jumping on the wing too many times? If it is the spar I would think there would be other evidence and easily found.
 
weilke said:
Doesn't have to be a hard landing. Aluminum is known to crack for no good reason at all. This is not the first and not the last 310 that has cracks in the structure.
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Fatigue is a pretty good reason. And if it were simply fatigue, this could be a farily inexpensive fix back to airworthiness.

I am not trained in metallurgy or airplane knucklebusting.
 
Richard said:
Yes, I noticed the annual is not signed off. Digging deeper, why isn't the annual signed off? Because of the tears in the doubler....

What caused those tears? It's an WAG the spar is deformed or damaged. It also is a WAG a so-called "hard landing" caused the tears. I thought I'd ask those more knowledgeable than I for opinion.
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Could be a hard landing, Yes but I find it hard to believe that a landing hard enough to flex the spar attachments did not produce any damage anywhere else. Maybe they over stressed it doing some reverse cuban 8's:confused:

Skylane81E said:
What if he busted the zero fuel and hit turbulance?
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Zero fuel weight on the Q is the same as Max t/o so they would have to be over loaded alot and hitting turb that stressed passed the 3'G mark. Possible, Yes!

Skylane81E said:
I think you would be hard pressed to find a plane that damaged only the spar fittings on a hard landing.
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\
:thumbsup:

weilke said:
Doesn't have to be a hard landing. Aluminum is known to crack for no good reason at all. This is not the first and not the last 310 that has cracks in the structure.
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This is true, but there is damage in the same spot on both wings. Looks like the metal is bent also. Just my 2 cents
 
Richard said:
The way I read the story in the ad was the ins co wanted a date. The "hard landing" fixed a date.

  • This provides relief to the shop who did the prior annual since the date occured after that inspection.
  • This allows the owner to collect from the ins co.
  • This provides relief to the pilot against possible FAA enforcement.
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So in other words someone committed insurance fraud by converting something that was possibly fatigue related (iow wear and tear) into a 'sudden event' that was covered by insurance ? As the plane is now owned by Wentworth, it was totaled by the insurance co. In order for that to happen either their adjuster or the shop they relied on to to create the estimate told them that it would cost in excess of 30k to fix that little crack.

Maybe this can be fixed by pulling the wings off, drilling out some rivets and installing new doublers. Buck fifty for the aluminum, 5 bucks for the rivets :idea: .
 
weilke said:
Maybe this can be fixed by pulling the wings off, drilling out some rivets and installing new doublers. Buck fifty for the aluminum, 5 bucks for the rivets :idea: .
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Nah, too much trouble. Just stop-drill the cracks, bondo, and paint to match.
 
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