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When I read this question asking for identification of the aircraft, my immediate question was:

What is that duck tape for?

Whether you call it duck tape or duct tape, why is it being applied to the nacelle?

a technician applying tape to an engine

SQB
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    It's being applied to keep the nacelle from falling off, of course. – Pete Becker Feb 03 '17 at 21:19
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    @PeteBecker close, but no cigar; the nacelle is usually held on by crazy glue. The tape is speed tape, which makes the plane go faster. – 0xdd Nov 20 '18 at 15:21

1 Answers1

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It's not duct tape. It's speed tape.

Speed tape is an aluminum pressure-sensitive tape used to do minor repairs on aircraft and racing cars. It is used as a temporary repair material until a more permanent repair can be carried out.

Probably just got a bit of a gap around the cowling or perhaps a loose fastener or two. It's common practice for sealing minor gaps and things until it's next in the hangar for work.

Whilst I was Googling for speed tape, I also found these:

http://www.askthepilot.com/duct-tape/

This is how the wonderful British "tabloid" press deal with aviation stories. Top marks for getting the "shocked passenger" phrase in.

Simon
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    Wow - at first pass, I thought the Speed Tape was much like the Speed Holes in Homer's car. Thanks for the answer and details! – BruceWayne Feb 03 '17 at 22:45
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    To be fair, if I, as a passenger, saw a worker apparently duct-taping the engine on a plane I was about to hang around up in the sky in, I’d probably be reasonably shocked as well. And to give them their fair dues, they did spend most of the article explaining how it’s not duct tape but actually perfectly normal and absolutely up to safety standards. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 04 '17 at 00:40
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    Other than the price tag, and the fact it takes some brute force to get off the roll, I'm sure you'd probably want to trade your duck tape in for a roll of speed tape ;) – UnrecognizedFallingObject Feb 04 '17 at 01:53
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    @JanusBahsJacquet: I find assuming that maintenance personnel don't know what they are doing more shocking than the opposite. – Martin Argerami Feb 04 '17 at 12:07
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    @MartinArgerami Being shocked at seeing something very unexpected doesn't equal assuming it is wrong. If I looked out the window and saw someone putting (what looks like) duct tape on a nacelle like that, I would have been shocked and thought, “Is that for real? WTF?!”. I wouldn't assume maintenance didn't know what they were doing, but it would shock me that taping up an airplane was apparently something to be done. And I'd be quite likely to take a picture and tweet about it, too. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 04 '17 at 12:38
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    @JanusBahsJacquet: You may take one minute to include in your reasoning, before being "shocked", that an airline that owns or leases a $100 million to $300 million aircraft is not in a hurry to not take care of it. In the past, when we didn't know, we assumed things were handled correctly by those who know, it seems that today, everyone wants to challenge skilled professionals, even in a domain which is one of the most regulated and safe ones. – mins Feb 04 '17 at 20:05
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    @mins My point is that shock generally comes before reasoning. Once you've reasoned, there is no possibility of shock. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Feb 04 '17 at 20:18
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    @BruceWayne It probably happened just like that scene from The Simpsons too. Someone was applying duct tape to the plane and someone said "Hey! are you fixing the plane with duct tape?" "No, this is speed tape, it makes the plane go faster" – Cave Johnson Feb 04 '17 at 20:45
  • @KodosJohnson and you know they were waiting for someone to ask just that question. Hahaha, apropos username too! – BruceWayne Feb 04 '17 at 21:01
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    If I looked out the window and saw that, before reading this, I probably would have gotten off the plane, just to be fair. With big commercial airlines cutting costs by making passengers share a can of soda, I could totally see them "saving money" by "speed tapping" something that really should have been taken into a hanger and fixed. – coteyr Feb 05 '17 at 19:23
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    @JanusBahsJacquet "My point is that shock generally comes before reasoning". Maybe for certain types of people it does, especially these days. Definitely not "generally", though. – Jason C Feb 05 '17 at 21:38
  • This doesn't answer the question at all: why? Whatever that tape that is, OP is asking why are they putting it there. "To repair the airplane" seems to obvious to be helpful. – user3528438 Nov 19 '18 at 21:37
  • I've heard the US Army used speed tape to protect the edges of helicopter rotor blades against the effect of sand against the blades in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm. – Davidw Nov 20 '18 at 01:09
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    Being obvious doesn't make it wrong or unhelpful. @user3528438 – Nij Nov 20 '18 at 07:34
  • Why include a link to the mirror? You are driving traffic to a terrible, unethical website. Please remove that from the answer. – Cloud Nov 20 '18 at 10:40
  • @coteyr really? you could totally see that because they want to save money on mixers by suggesting that couples share a can (which seems fairly logical, especially if they notice they often throw away half-finished cans of mixer), they also want to gamble the loss of a $xxx million aircraft? i'm sorry, but walking off the aircraft because you see a highly-trained maintenance worker carrying out a procedure you know nothing about is a little crazy. – jbg Apr 09 '19 at 08:16
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    At least on the flights I have been on they don't ask couples to share. They split a can of Sprite between three strangers and then expect you to pay if you want more. And yes, I assume that if a company is that cheap they look for any way to save money. Like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_191 – coteyr Apr 09 '19 at 15:31
  • @coteyr You're being paranoid and forgetting that the FAA regulates aircraft maintenance in the USA, and there are other regulation bodies throughout the world. But they don't regulate splitting a can of soda. You're making a false equivalence. Speed tape on a cowling is not an unreasonable maintenance procedure and is a regulated form of maintenance. Don't spread FUD. – spex Jun 18 '20 at 10:05
  • @mins I go by "trust, but verify" which is how I meant my question. I don't assume that guy is MacGyvering it, but it is a somewhat unusual sight, hence my question. – SQB May 15 '23 at 08:12
  • SQB: Curiosity is certainly a quality and I upvoted your question. My comment was only aimed to "To be fair, if I [...] saw a worker apparently duct-taping the engine[...], I’d probably be reasonably shocked as well". – mins May 15 '23 at 08:49
  • @JasonC Yes, absolutely generally. Shock is an immediate reaction that happens with no reflection; reasoning is not. When you hear a balloon pop, the shock makes you jump before the rational reasoning that it’s completely harmless hits you. The same is true when you see something that appears bizarre to you. If it did not register as shocking or surprising, there would be no need to reason about it at all. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Jun 16 '23 at 12:35