Ten years of flight service with DC-10 composite rudders - A backward glance

Carbon-epoxy upper aft rudders have been successfully evaluated on the DC-10 during 10 years of airline flight service. They have flown for more than 320,000 flight hours, with 36,000 flight hours flown by a single rudder. The rudder box is of thin-skin buckled construction and is cocured out-of-autoclave as a one-piece assembly. Weight saving can exceed the rudder weight if full advantage is taken of removing balance weight from the forward rudder.