Probably the most misunderstood thing in all of aviation is speed tape. Passengers see what looks like ‘duct tape’ on their plane, and they worry whether it will hold together. The plane doesn’t look safe and first impressions over safety matter right now with aviation safety top of mind given the issues we’ve seen with the Boeing 737 MAX 9 door plug, air traffic control mishaps, and pilot error over the past couple of years.
Photos like this one represent nervous passengers, and airlines making a poor impression, even though safety hasn’t been compromised. For 100 years aviation safety has been both a practice of continuous improvement, driving down risk, and of managing perceptions.
Has anyone seen anything like this before?
byu/KnownJackfruit8104 inairplanes
These sorts of images scare passengers, but this isn’t duct tape. It is actually aluminum pressure-sensitive tape that can stick to an aircraft’s fuselage or wing at high speeds.
It is used in aviation for minor, temporary repairs on aircraft. It has high resistance to weather conditions and extreme temperatures. And its use is strictly regulated. In general, it is for temporary fixes until a more permanent repair can be made, often within a few days.
The location and nature of the damage on an aircraft determines whether use of speed tape is appropriate, consistent with FAA guidelines and the aircraft manufacturer’s structural repair manual. Speed tape is not indicated where it could potentially affect the structural integrity of the aircraft (or cause an aerodynamic issue).
So you’ll generally see it used for minor, non-structural damage such as covering minor dents or scratches that don’t affect structural integrity and securing loose objects such as a panel until they can be properly fixed.
There’s nothing wrong with this plane, in the sense that it’s perfectly airworthy. But every time passengers see something like this they’re shaken, and they worry about how well managed and maintained the airline they’re flying is.
Here’s one that looks pretty bad on the ground in Albuquerque prior to boarding. The forward fuselage is the part of the aircraft’s body where the cockpit is located. It’s the plane’s “first impression” – and this one doesn’t make a very good one.
Pressure-sensitive tape dates to the 1840s, though of course the tape used later at the dawn of aviation (masking tape) wouldn’t be used on an aircraft. Duct tape was developed during World War Two. Technology has continued to evolve, but popular understanding of it – in aviation and beyond – often lags. It wouldn’t hurt for airline employees themselves to be better educated, so that they could proactively explain it to customers.
I realize that there is a lot of varied opinions about the correct name for the ubiquitous silver tape, including that it was originally called “duck” tape rather than “duct”. However, one thing is clear, whatever you call it, it is useless on ventilation ducts as the heat very quickly destroys the adhesive and time will shortly do the same leading to peel off. If you want to seal seams in ventilation ducts, buy something appropriate for it (and probably very similar to the speed tape shown the article above).
When used in the manner shown the pilot should be required to tell passengers what it is for. Just make it along side the other small talk comments they make during announcements.
Why would a pilot, who knows something about flying, take up a plane he knew to be unsafe? Airborne Karens/Kevins ought to stop using their high-school equivalency education to second guess people working on airplanes since they were eating tide pods.
I wonder if the large wing surface covered with speed tape is an authorized engineering usage. Just because smaller patches are authorized doesn’t mean large ones are also authorized.
That is one heck of a lot of speed tape! That can’t be cheap.