After all the discussion on why one might eject a wing skin in flight, I've decided to modify my paint scheme and not have anything but white on my wings.  My paint scheme has a small amount of my accent colors coming onto the wing at the wingtip.  If the outboard 10" of my leading edge were painted red, it could heat up above the critical temperature, that could start the separation process running inboard.  I think it may be best to keep my colors confined to the tip and leave the entire upper wing surface white.

 

Mark Mankhe (finally got the correct spelling), when he gave his opening speech at the buildshop covered the prep in detail, about how important it was to rough up the surface, clean it thoroughly, wetting out, mounding the flox, etc.  But at the end he said that the aircraft is engineered for amateurs to build, so there is a healthy margin in the bonds to allow for "less than perfect" builder skills.

 

I think each of us has to sort out the evidence and decide it this was a builder error or whether the Lancair bonding procedure is inadequate.  We know Lancair recommends white paint, there were visible gaps in the bond, etc.  Am I trying to point the finger at somebody's workmanship?  Certainly not!  I don't even know if the builder is listening to this dialog.  I know I did my best along the way to make my bonds as strong as possible, we all do.  There's no way to check them, just gotta hope I did a good enough job.

 

Historically, I think Lancair airframes have suffered very few bond failures.

 

Mike Easley

Colorado Springs