Short Final: Structural Integrity

My first job in aviation back in 1978 was as an admissions counselor at East Coast Aero Tech, an A&P school in Lexington, Massachusetts (a town you may have heard of). As a freshly certificated private pilot, I discovered the magical world of homebuilt airplanes and quickly joined the Experimental Aircraft Association. At the time, there were a few very basic homebuilt designs that used plywood airframes with Styrofoam formers wrapped in fabric to shape the airfoil, control surfaces and various fillets and a fuselage smoother-outer here and there. I even ordered a set of plans for one of the designs. I think it cost me $25.

One day, I was standing around in the airframe shop area and I asked a few of the old-school instructors what they thought of the wood-and-foam construction technique I had "invested" in. After an awkward pause, one of them took his empty Styrofoam coffee cup, bent his wooden stirrer double and stuck it inside, then dropped it on the floor and crushed it under his shop boot.

He said, “That’s what they look like when they crash,” and walked away.