Twin Otter Fuselage Repair

First flight of the twin otter for probably a year or so on Saturday 8th June. On the second flight I just caught the edge of the runway's rough grass with one of the mains. This caused the Otter to slam down it's nose leg this breaking out the front former  which split into two halves (top n bottom) along with the nose cone. It also pulled out the steering gear box ply.

With all the bits/parts recovered the very next day I took a long look at what I am up against.  I managed to glue the front former back into one piece, it does not look pretty but after the epoxy had gone off it feels quite sturdy again, it needs to as it has to take any impact when touching down from the nose leg.  Images show the former and what is left of the steering support box.  I also repaired the split in the fuselage just in front of the lower service hatch.

With some home maintenance at a standstill waiting on stuff to arrive I got back into the Otter.  I cut out a lower steering box from  2.5 mm aircraft grade ply (expensive, lucky I did not chuck any left over away).  Cutting out by hand, jigsawing out the centre and using wood chisels to make the notches it actually fits with a bit of jiggling into both the former 1 and former two.  At later date when the front former is in position along with the steering mount and the custom lower mount I will glue bracing between the two to increase the strength.

With those parts ready I have glued in to the forward edges of the fuselage where the front former fits some 3/16 balsa to increase the glue contact area as the longerons will no longer slot into the backside of the front former, although I personally don't think they really did anything regarding sturdiness of the fuselage but just for alignment of the outer skin to nose cone.

The real fun part will be aligning the former at the same time as aligning the two steering box mountings.  Definitely 30 min epoxy and a lot of patience!