Doug is right on here. The rip tapes are for covering overlapping joints,
reinforcing at wear or stress areas, and covering the knots from fabric
being stiched to ribs. Im the stiched areas, it's mainly to streamline
and weatherproof that area.
>
>>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.
This is one of those, sometimes, type answers. Many times the fabric
will be laid out, a sewn together on a machine, and have a "sail ' type
overlapping of the adjoining pieces. Then thi is double stiched with
a sail type stitch.
Very rarely, espcially on planes that had a long seam parallel to the
span, this would get a rib tape.
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