Club Homepage Forums The Cessna 150-152 Fly-In Fly-In Questions Well HAIL...

I knew King Air's weren't the fastest planes around but I didn't realize they were *that* slow.

Well, David...I'm talking about a machine that I could afford---like something that flies on 4 cylinders.

At 200 mph, the King Air Burns about 70 gallons per hour. I couldn't afford that for very long.

The question is...build or buy... But I digress.

Having seen what hail did to my brother's 170B (and subsequent insurance rate "adjustment") let's just say I'm in no hurry to test my policy (although next year I just may go liability only)...I know it's "just a 150"...but...

Mark,

Some interesting conversations with insurance adjusters. All that I've spoken to say that hail claims are the hardest to deal with and their least liked. The good part is that it is rare that the airplane cannot be flown. The hard part is figuring out what should be done with the airplane. A lot of times the adjuster and the owner talk over the options and reach some sort of agreement.

The least liked among owners is the spot or partial paint job; it almost never matches. The owner may hold out for replacing skins and repainting the entire airplane, but that can come close to the stated value. Plus, most of the time, minor hail damage disappears in a couple of years through normal heating and cooling cycles plus flight loads.

The Cardinal I owned had been hail damaged before I bought it. The owners settled with the insurer for a new paint job. It was beautiful. Over the time I owned the airplane the hundreds of little dings on it disappeared, leaving only a few that had been larger even visible, and even they had gotten smaller.

Now, hail damage in flight...yikes.

Best regards,
Rick

A friend had a Clipper he bought cheap that had seen hail in flight. Why someone would be IN hail IN A CLIPPER is beyond me. Anyway, his leading edges looked awful, but it flew fine.

In Cessna's with leading edge damage, wouldn't an STOL cuff be a great way to remedy that situation?

Jim,

The nasty thing about hail is that it is ejected from the side, near the top, of a thunderstorm (it's one of the reasons to say at least 20 miles away). You can think you are safely in clear air, beside a storm and, whambo, hail.

That's a scary story but a pretty happy ending, all things considered. Often hail takes out the windshield and can pound the leading edge back against the spar turning the wing into a lifting device on a par with a Popsicle stick.

I don't even want to think about what it could do to the fabric covering of a Clipper...

Best regards,
Rick

Rick,

That was an excellent description of how we felt about hail claims. As a pilot I felt for my insured. 9 times out of 10 I would explain how things could go and let the insured decide the best way to proceed.

We signed the final proof of loss for our birdstrike incident today.

Whew... And, I learned a whole lot (many thanks, Tim Noto, for patiently explaining things to me, and for making me dislike "betterment" not so much.)

My thinking is, I'm not married to my plane. If it would cost 25,000 bucks to reskin all of the upper surfaces, including all control surfaces with paint and balance, then, I think i'd rather just have the money. That'd buy me the RV kit. The 150/150 is insured for 35,000, which would cover the kit, used low time engine and new propeller. Not a bad trade, in my opinion. I sure couldn't sell it for that. But, I don't think I could build my own 150/150 Texas Tragger, STOL, and Long Range tanks for that. I know folks who have spent north of 50K on conversions.

I hope it never happens, though. It's likely that I won't be alone, and it's really likely that other aircraft around me won't be insured. So...for the time being, there ain't no rain in sight for Texas anyway. I guess I'll have to start spending my weekends in Oklahoma. The weather sucks, there.

Tim,
That is exactly the way that we dealt with hale damage on my T210 with a two year old paint job. We replaced the windscreen and agreed upon a figure to cover reduction in value when the plane was sold.

I was happy with the deal because the damage was mostly cosmetic and I continued to fly the airplane for twenty more years.

BTW: Some dry ice and West Texas sun will remove a lot of minor hale damage. (A trick that I learned from a friend that was an adjuster for an auto insurance company)

Hmmm......that is interesting, I don't suppose you could give a quick, but full, explaination of the exact procedure could you Wayne....please, kind Sir