Maintenance & Care

Keep the aircraft airworthy between flights and over its service life. Record all inspections, defects and rectifications in your RPAS technical log. Reject/repair criteria — including the numeric crack-length repair ladder — are set out in Damage tolerance & repair below.

Inspection points

After every flight (post-flight inspection):

Propeller / TVC vanes — inspect for new nicks, cracks or stress marks; replace propellers as matched sets — see Damage tolerance & repair below. [TBD — prop handedness/folding per aircraft.]
Motor mounts — re-check paint-witness marks; confirm fasteners secure.
Landing surfaces — the tail/lower fuselage take the recovery impact; inspect for damage.
Battery — check for swelling or abnormal heat (see Battery Management).
Servos & linkages — listen for new noise; check for new play.
Fold joints / attachments — engaged, undamaged, not strained.

Inspection schedule (hours or calendar, whichever comes first; intervals draft [TBD — confirm]):

Level	When	Contents	Who
Post-flight	Every flight	Post-flight inspection items above	Remote pilot
Full inspection	Every 10 flight hours or 90 days, and after any repair, hard landing, or removal from storage	Everything above, plus: control-surface free-play & neutral trim; connector & wiring inspection (chafing, security); autopilot/IMU health review from logs (EKF, vibration); antenna & datalink check; fastener check with witness marks	Operator’s maintenance controller
Factory service	After a crash, major damage, or on RFD service bulletin	Structural assessment, re-baseline	RFD only

Airworthiness limitations

Mandatory replacement/retirement limits. Operating past these limits ends RFD’s support for the airworthiness of the aircraft:

Propellers: replace on any crack, chip or nick (no repair permitted); replace as matched sets. No calendar life [TBD — confirm cycle/hour life].
Battery packs: retire a pack at 80 % of its original capacity, on any swelling, leak or crash exposure, or on a persistent cell imbalance (> 0.1 V spread at rest after balancing).
Structural repairs: a primary load path that is compromised or re-cracks after repair is a replace, not a re-repair (see Damage tolerance & repair below).
Component life limits (servos, fold detents, motor bearings) [TBD — populate per aircraft].

Records & logs

Keep, per aircraft (these are the records a CASA ReOC operations library expects):

Time-in-service log — date, flights, flight time, cumulative hours.
Maintenance & inspection log — use this format:

Date	Aircraft / S/N	Hours	Level (post-flight / full / factory)	Work done & parts fitted	Name & signature

Defect log — defect found, date, grounding decision, rectification, date closed. Carried-over watch items (e.g. a marked, stable crack) live here with their re-inspection dates.

Printable blank log sheets: (appendix, to come).

Damage tolerance & repair

The airframe is 3D-printed (PA-CF / reinforced polymer). Fine surface cracks and layer-line marks are normal for a printed structure and are not, by themselves, cause to ground the aircraft. The maintenance controller’s job is to tell the difference between benign surface marking and a crack that can propagate to structural failure — and to catch the latter before it does.

Assess by location and behaviour, not just presence

A crack is a concern in proportion to where it is and whether it is growing:

Load-path / structural areas — treat any crack seriously and repair before flight: the motor / duct mount and its surrounds, the wing root and wing-spar interface, the X-tail fin roots (these are also the landing gear and take the recovery impact), the payload bayonet interface, and any bulkhead or hard-point.
Non-structural / cosmetic areas (outer skin panels away from load paths): a small, stable surface crack may be monitored rather than immediately repaired.

Grounding indications — repair or replace before further flight:

A crack that has grown between inspections (the key propagation signal — mark, date, and re-measure suspect cracks each inspection).
A crack through the full wall thickness, or one at or crossing a load-bearing joint / hard-point.
Any crack at or near the motor / duct mount.
Delamination (layers separating) in a load-bearing area.
Any crack, chip or nick in a propeller → replace the propeller immediately (a damaged blade causes imbalance that damages the motor); replace propellers as matched sets.

Crack-length repair ladder

For a visible crack in the printed structure, the required action scales with crack length:

Crack length	Required action
< 3 mm	Monitor — mark the crack tips, date it in the technical log, re-check each inspection
≥ 3 mm	Repair with glue before further flight (CA or epoxy, per below)
≥ 15 mm	Repair with glue plus a doubler — a bonded reinforcing patch of additional material joining both sides of the crack
≥ 50 mm	Serious damage — contact RFD before any repair or further flight

Location still dominates: in a load path (motor/duct mount, wing root/spar, fin roots, bayonet interface) treat any crack at the next rung up, and never fly an unrepaired load-path crack.

Repairs

Repairs to the printed structure are made with cyanoacrylate (CA / “super glue”) or two-part epoxy:

Hairline cracks and small splits → thin CA. Clean the area with isopropyl alcohol to remove dirt and oils; apply a thin bead of CA along the crack and hold firmly for 30–60 seconds until set; where accessible, wick CA into both sides of the crack. CA is fast and ideal for arresting a small crack.
Structural repairs, reinforcement and gap-filling → two-part epoxy. Epoxy gives a stronger, more durable bond for functional/load-bearing parts; use it (optionally with a fibre or printed doubler) to reinforce a repaired hard-point. Follow the epoxy’s cure time before flight.
After any repair, re-inspect, confirm the fix is solid, and monitor the area on subsequent flights as a known watch-point in the technical log.

Repair vs replace

Repair cosmetic and small structural damage where the underlying structure is sound. Replace the part (or return the aircraft to RFD) when a primary load path is compromised, when damage recurs in the same area, or when a repair would not restore the as-built strength. As a rule of thumb across the industry, if a repair approaches a large fraction of the component’s replacement cost, replace it. When in doubt about a structural repair, contact RFD support.

General 3D-printed-UAV repair practice above is consistent with widely published guidance; see Super Avionics, Printzkart, and ABJ Drone Academy.

Consumables & wear items

[TBD — populate per aircraft: propellers, servos, fold detents/springs, seals, battery cycle life.]

Storage

Store the aircraft clean and dry, out of direct sunlight, within the storage temperature range.
Store batteries separately at storage voltage (see Battery Management).
Support the airframe so no control surface or fold joint bears load.

Transport

The aircraft disassembles into a transport tube with the wing stowed alongside.
Fit protective covers (pitot cover where applicable); secure the battery per dangerous-goods rules.
Inspect on arrival before assembly (transit damage).

Do-not-do

🚫 Do not modify firmware, parameters, or propulsion components without RFD’s written approval.
🚫 Do not substitute non-RFD propellers, batteries, or chargers.
🚫 Do not return an aircraft to flight after a crash, hard landing, or unexplained anomaly without RFD’s clearance.

Support

Missing/damaged components or maintenance queries: contact the RFD team at support@rocketfastdrones.com.