I went back up to the airport to reconnoiter. One thing that I had seen when up there the last time was a piece of cut-up tubing whose function I could not identify. I thought at first that it might be a cut piece of the wing keel, but as I looked more closely, I saw it was a piece of the control bar. But only a piece. As I examined it, I saw that it included a piece of the crossbar and part of one of the uprights. I was disappointed that this was all that was left of the control bar that I could find. This would be a problem because there were connectors at each corner that were missing. Then I thought that maybe the rest of the control bar was zipped up in the wing bag, which under normal circumstances would be the place for the control bar to be kept. So it would make sense that the rest of it would be in the wing bag, and sure enough, as I opened the wing bag, there was the rest of the control bar. I detached it and put all the pieces into the trunk of the car to bring back home. One thing that will be a challenge to fix was that virtually all the flying wires have been cut. Hopefully I can find or have made replacements. It would probably not be a bad idea to replace them all anyway for the same reason I would want to replace all the bolts while I have everything disassembled. A good move and significant upgrade to the trike.
As I had the wing bag unzipped, without unfolding the wing, I checked it out as best as I could. I saw that the front part of the keel tube is slightly bent; not enough, I don’t think, to compromise the integrity of the keel. I think it could be straightened and restored to use. The wing itself looks good, although Steve had warned me that he thought there were some small punctures I will have to find and repair later when I can assemble the wing fully. Those will be easy to repair.
Since I now had the control bar pieces accounted for, along with connectors and wires that had been cut. It was enough to determine replacement aluminum tubing.
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