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Andrews Web Site
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Date: 7-4-2023
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Number of Hours: 4.00
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: Final welding the landing gear mounts
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Welded all of the tubes and gussets for the left and right landing gear mounts.
Welding is one of those things that everyone has an opinion about. Some folks will tell you that no amateur welder should ever weld anything on an aircraft. Some say nothing should be welded and not x-ray inspected afterwards, some say that all welds should be "stress relieved" after welding. Personally, I think you can find data to support almost anything you want, but I will be bold and write down a few of my thoughts on this topic. On the topic of who can do a weld. I went back and forth on whether I should do this weld myself. I think the critical (from a stress standpoint) weld is on the U-channel to tube assembly. As a result, I had that weld done by the race car shop a few hangars down from me. The aerospace certified lead welder there is a master at making beautiful and race proven welds. The plate and gusset welds I did myself. This is because there was a lot of rigging and positioning needed, and in general, the loads on any individual weld are lower. The HAZ I created were similar to those created by the certified welder. On the topic of stress relieving, I think it should only even be considered as necessary for thicknesses of .125 and above, so this falls in that gray area. If it was stress relieved, it is very difficult to get to the needed 1100 - 1200 degrees F, evenly, hold for the required time and back the heat down on a schedule across the entire part without an oven. I fall into the camp that believes heating individual welds with a torch does not properly allow the metal to relieve itself across all the affected zones at once as needed. Having said that, I think there is more potential for damage trying a torch stress relief. Therefore, I did not attempt PWHT of any kind.
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