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to the struts by small welded lugs. As soon as extra stress came on the cables through hard landings the small welded lugs were torn out of the strut. The joint itself never failed but the lug was torn out bodily with the joint and a strip of the tube.

              All chassis were altered and reinforced.
              Taking everything together, the original landing gear was decidedly too weak and even in its altered form is far from being ideal.

WINGS. The wings are of astonishing strength, especially in crashes and are exceedingly simple in repairs. Even in the worst accidents it is an exception to find a broken spar which cannot be repaired with very little trouble. If spars show a fracture after a crash it generally is in the thinnest part at the wing tips and is occasioned but the crushing of the wing tip in striking the earth. Such fractures, which re rare, are easily repaired by making simple splices in the top and bottom beams, staggering the scarfs according to the laminations and fixing now plywood webs over a greater area than that limited by the splice.

                The  following difficulties were experienced with the wing construction.


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