Anyone have a recommended shop for fabric repair or replacement and paint on the east coast? Unfortunately the M5 got banged up pretty bad by the storms that blasted through CT on Tuesday.

Ortex from Better Aircraft Fabric is really good, neat, quick, and affordable. I had resently got my Maule into an argument with a snaggey branch that hung in the gear on rollout poked some holes in the belly fabric. The Ortex fabric was sooooo easy to work with, prepanted and basically just cut to size and iron on and go flying that easy.
But then again I don't know how beat up your's got , but if you can tolerate some patch work look it'll get you back to flying in a couple of days then recover in the winter.

Fully agree, oratex is great to. Easy to apply and easy to repair on case it gets damaged. And Lars the owner of betterfabric, is very helpful!

Is it FAA certified yet?

Is the fabric certified?

Oratex is certified in Europe and Canada and FAA STCs are now available for many aircraft, including Pipers, some Aeroncas, Stinsons, as well as all Maules and Huskys. We also have field approval for Cessna 120/140s.

I've been reading up on their webpage lately because I think it's about time to replace the 45 year old Razorback with at least two coats of paint.

I've thought about Oratex but still not keen on the translucent look. Anyone have a recent estimate of cost to recover and paint from a shop and/or doing it yourself?

The materials for Oratex for a Bearhawk (same general dimensions as a Maule) is about $6000.

You won't find very many shops that do recover work in the regular market as most of those guys work on all metal airplanes. You'd do better to look toward the restoration folks or aerobatic people. Those are the only ones who really know fabric. I don't know many people in the NE who do that, but I know plenty from Virginia on south. Is the airplane airworthy, or do you need to truck it to a recover shop.

It's airworthy enough to get somewhere. Mostly paint damage with exposed fabric with a few minor dents in the wings. 19 missing VGs as the wind blew from the left side.

Wow! All that happened from a storm? I thought that only happened in FL. The 19 missing VGs make it "unairworthy" according to the STC, but I doubt that would stop the wings from generating lift. Just land it like it didn't have VGs at all.

This picture was taken from the power plant you can see up on the hill behind the tail in one of the previous pictures. It's looking down over the airport.



The line of thunder storms spawned multiple tornadoes in the area. So I'm glad the damage was limited to what it is.

So are you thinking recover? Could possibly strip and refinish. Either way, gonna need to glue on the missing VGs.

Heck, I've flown stuff that looked like that. I would be more concerned as to how the control surfaces were slapped around. Pull some inspection covers and look real hard at cables, pulleys, pulley brackets, and the like. There can be damage there.

We were operating a fleet of Pipers when Hugo came thru CLT some years ago. the birds were tied down and controls tied. Looked over the birds and thought we were ok. As time went by and we brought the airplanes in for 100 hr inspections we found bent bell cranks, push rods, and all kind of stuff. Kind of embarrassing that we had been flying them like that.

She did get beat up pretty good but looks more like from FOD & gravel rather than hale. From the looks of it probably the best option would be a recover trying to patch all those chips and ringworm would be a nightmare. Any chance for help from insurance? On the upside you did a really good job of tying it down
Wondering why no apparent damage happened to the rudder?

Is that Razorback??

If you decide to recover Ceconite will save you a bunch of weight from Razorback and give you the chance to look really hard at what is underneath in case something go banged or check for corrosion.

Slap some "High Speed Tape" on that tear in the tail and super glue VG's back on (assuming you have lost enough to be un-airworthy) before flying to a repair shop. You can get extra VG's from https://microaero.com/ if you don't have the spares that came with the kit (along w/ the approved epoxy instead of super glue).

I would STRONGLY suggest getting someone who is familiar with recovering Maules to do the job. It is not a Piper or a Cessna.

Sorry to see your bird banged up. I have seen hail damage really eff up a Maule.

I’m waiting for the insurance adjuster to come out this week. I’m thinking recover if insurance covers enough of the damage. The flight controls all had external locks on them so they didn’t get slammed to stops as far as I can tell. The left aileron and flap did get a small bend where the lock bolt passed between them apparently from the deflection from whatever hit the top of the aileron and dented it. I think the rudder may have deflected and angled away from the primary wind and hail direction slightly as far as the lock would allow. It might have fresher more pliable paint on it too. It’s definitely hail as there is an experimental plane of some sort not sure what it is that has thinner skin panels it it was damaged on top of the wings and same side of the fuselage. It’s harder to see in the pictures but there are many ring worms hits in the orange paint on the horizontal stab from the hail too. The tear is actually the edge of a tape the wind got under which could be glued back down. I have a few spare VGs. My wife and I found 4 of the 19 VGs walking the ramp downwind of the tie down. A couple took direct hits by hail and are damaged. I’m pretty sure the fabric is Stitts D103 according to a 337 in 1985 after it was damaged and recovered.