Friday, January 22, 2010

Duct Tape Saves The Day


Showing once again that duct tape can do anything except fix ducts, Alaskan pilot, Luke Miller used it to repair a plane.

Miller decided to stop overnight at friend, Gary LaRose's hunting lodge last September. Unfortunately, LaRose had been having problems with a brown bear. Earlier the bear had broken into a meat shed, helping itself to 60 to 70 pounds of fresh moose.

LaRose removed the culinary opportunities for the bear, but the bear continued to break into the shed. On the night Miller stopped by, the bear tried again. Frustrated, the bear turned to LaRose's 1958 Piper Cub. The results were not pretty as the pictures show below...







What happened next is described in an article that appeared in the Alaska Dispatch:
After a few days of meticulous fix-it work, the plane was airworthy enough to fly back to Anchorage. Miller fitted the windows with plywood and Plexiglas, replaced the tires and the horizontal stabilizer (the bear either leaned on it or sat on it), and, according to Miller's dad, fashioned a makeshift fabric skin out of 25 rolls of duct tape and some industrial-strength plastic wrap.



Once again, duct tape saves the day.  It just cannot save your ducts.  You can fly a plane held together with duct tape.  You just cannot hold ducts together with duct tape.

Thanks to Greg McAfee for the heads up about this one.

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