Kitfox 5 nose over damage repair cost and fuselage straightening

[FloridaFlier]

The dream of owning my first aircraft came true on Aug 19th 2022 and turned into a nightmare on April 4th 2024. Finally secured a hangar near home in Denver and was moving the plane from CCB (Cable Field) to CFO (Colorado Air & Space Port) when just south of Las Vegas I lost oil pressure and was forced to land off airport. Flipped over in the scrub brush.. The usual crushed tail resulted with some slight fuselage fabric wrinkling just aft of the rear quarter windows. Before making what seems like it could be a foolish decision to buy the airplane back from the salvage site I?m doing my best to figure out repair cost. I?m very concerned about the fuselage, unfortunately couldn?t inspect it very well before the airplane was recovered to the insurance company's lot. My main question is, would there be any chance of straightening the fuse with some kind of fixture if there are no kinked tubes? I imagine the fabric would need to be removed and redone in any case. I might see if there?s any chance of going to Phoenix and taking a better look before bidding.
Other damage is lots of scrapes and small holes on the upper wing surface, flaperons are busted, and there was a prop strike although I had shut down the motor when I lost oil pressure, the prop was vertical and one of the stupid things I did that day was not blip the starter so it would be horizontal.
The oil loss was due to a cracked flange on the C90?s oil tank. How much could I expect to sell a low time C90 with the issues mentioned? I wanted to put a Verner 7U on the plane, and if I get her back, I don?t expect to waste any more money on that C90. Great engine for some airplanes, but for me it was problems from the day I flew the plane home.
See the wrinkled fabric of concern below:

[alexM]

Oh that is a bummer! Good job on the off airport landing though.

People have repaired planes that were much worse, but it takes a certain skill set.

[P Johnson]

That looks like the aluminium stringer is bent not the chrome alloy tube, should be very easy to replace if you are removing the fabric.

[109JB]

I just got my third Kitfox that I have repaired back in the air. Here they are in before and after pictures of all three. Next post will be more detail about what I think about it.

First one with trailering damage to the fuselage that was my fault.
20190804_212412.jpg
After repairs.
20190822_101157.jpg

Second one that a shed partially collapsed on. Bought it this way from original builder like this.
20211004_110529.jpg
After repairs
20211223_153629.jpg

Third one bought from an insurance company after it nosed over.
20200401_164944.jpghttps://photos.app.goo.gl/9EKRyGZ1LhhdAzwJ9
After repairs
IMG_0063.jpg
In-flight video if the link works
https://photos.app.goo.gl/9EKRyGZ1LhhdAzwJ9

[109JB]

So What do I think. Obviously I have some experience fixing damaged Kitfoxes, and particularly bent fuselages. Well. from one single picture you can't tell what is or isn't bent on yours. Certainly whatever is wrong on it can be repaired. As mentioned the wrinkle in the fabric appears to be just a bent stringer. On the Kitfox 4s this is a wood stringer but maybe metal on yours. You would have to verify that nothing else is bent, but if that is all on the fuselage then you could patch that in-place. If there are bent tubes in the fuselage you can straighten them as I detail in one of my threads here--> https://teamkitfox.com/Forums/thread...ighlight=109jb

You mentioned that the flaperons are damaged. On one of mine I had to replace them and this was the largest cost for the repair of that one. I wound up paying about $2k for flaperons another builder had including shipping. You can check with the factory about their cost.

As for fabric needing to be removed.... not necessarily. Look at my pictures in the previous post. On both yellow airplanes I only removed as much fabric as absolutely necessary to do the repairs and then patched the small section. The red/white airplane I completely rebuilt to become the blue white airplane, but could have done a local repair on that one too.

If there are small holes, I'd just patch them as long as there is no underlying damage. Easy peasy.

The link to the repair of the blue and white airplane is above and links for the other two to give an idea.

https://teamkitfox.com/Forums/thread...fox-IV-project

https://teamkitfox.com/Forums/thread...ht-a-Kitfox-IV

[FloridaFlier]

Thanks for replies all. Not sure what Im going to do yet, the insurance auction ends june 15th so we?ll see what the high bid ends up at. Still need to talk to John McB about what the parts just to fix the tail will run.
Ryan