I have to disagree here. In my experience the rib tapes and glued on. On a
wing the fabric is sewn on. The stiches provide anchors for the fabric to
the ribs. My guess is that this also could be a plce where the fabric could
eventually tear from the pressure of the wind. So the rib tapes are applied
by doping them down to preven the wind from catching in the fabric and
ripping it. Tapes are applied anywhere there is a seam, generally. There are
some exceptions to this. The fabric for fuselages generally on the sides or
bottom isn't taped. By it appears to me that these places used a courser
thread and the fabric is folded over and doubled for added strength. This
provided easy access to the interior of the fuse to allow for maintenance of
cables etc.
>I have not seen - nor do I know of any - planes with rib tapes
>"stitched" between the "demarcation" of the strips of fabric - at
>least not on the 45 degree. Chances are they were stitched on the
>"parallel to the ribs" demarcation, only because the "demarcations"
>sometimes (all the time?) landed on ribs.
I am no expert. Don Ringer or Rick Ivansek can better comment on this. But I
believe that if the fabric needed to be joined it would be joined at a rib.
The joint would need taping so this would be the natural point.
Doug
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both Time and Space' | IEX Corporation
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