Do you ever wonder about all the small, circular shapes decorating the wings and fuselage of your airplane?
These are inspection panels, and they allow your mechanic easy access to small, usually somewhat round openings in the aircraft structure. During the aircraft’s annual inspection, he or she will remove these panels to look inside the aircraft—usually with the assistance of mirrors and a flashlight—for corrosion, flight-control discontinuity, or any other problems.
In nonstressed portions of the fuselage, these panels usually are held in place by a few self-tapping screws or machine screws. However, in highly stressed portions of the aircraft structure, they will be restrained by many structural screws. During your preflight, you want to make sure that all the inspection panels are present, and that no screws or other fasteners are missing or visibly loose; if any are, they can’t do their job of keeping the panel firmly attached.
Occasionally you may encounter a clear plastic or Plexiglass inspection cover. These are seen most often on aerobatic aircraft, in places where debris and loose items tend to collect. There’s nothing like flying upside down to empty passengers’ pockets of pens, change, keys, cell phones, and other things. Loose items need to be found and removed as soon as possible, to eliminate any chance they might jam or bind a flight control.
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