Had a great day flying on Saturday. Made it to a couple lunch fly-ins and then back home. Taxi back to my hanger on turf and just before pulling in, I heard a loud "POP". I stopped but didn't see or feel anything unusual. I taxied another 30' and parked on my pad in front of my hanger. As I opened the door, it seemed to scrape on the bottom like it was mis-aligned. I looked at the opening and found my fabric on the frame under the door wrinkled. I removed my seat and found the angle support tube broken. This was a clean break and not on the weld.
My Kitfox IV Speedster is a taildragger with just over 700 hours. Metal fatigue? Has anyone with a IV had any type of tube failure? Especially in this area?
The repair will begin this week but the big question is what caused this failure and what kind of stress is placed on this area that would cause separation, especially in this area of the fuselage? If taxi on turf might add to the stress of an airframe, I would think any type of structural failure would be somewhere else on the airframe.
Another question, are the angle support tubes the same gauge metal as the rest of the airframe?
KF IV Support Tube Break
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