The International Cessna^® 170 Association

Well the 206 is in Texas. I plan on leaving it here now for awhile. I'm concerned about those blasted ol Mud Dobbers getting it to it. tennis ball in the exhaust, I'm thinking of putting on my engine cover as well..........any other secrets you guys can share?



W.

W. my experience in Texas is any place there is an opening they will utilize. I have found them in wing areas where ailerons attach or in tail cone where rudder cables enter fuselage. Even the fresh air vents in leading edge of wing. Keeping the plane hangared helps but not a 100%.

George hoses his airplane down with WD-40 so the nests slide off easier.

Bruce Fenstermacher wrote:George hoses his airplane down with WD-40 so the nests slide off easier.

CAution: That technique won't work on green airplanes. (Insufficient relative wind)

Willie, you need to tame those dobbers and make pets of them. Then you could train them not to use your plane for their nesting place

I knew a guy here in the Fort Worth area that was having big issues with mud dobbers and he ended up making a box with a metal bottom ( a big cake pan would probably work) in which he filled it almost full of some good Texas dirt and kept it wet, which would be a problem if one weren't around every few days, but some type of seeping watering hose might work). The secret was he laced the mud with some insect chemical, I don't recall what, and the mud dobbers would pick up the mud for their nests and pretty soon he had killed most or all of them and did not have problems with them for the remainder of the season. This wouldn't work if there were other sources for the mud nearby I don't think, but if none existed within several hundred feet then the dobbers would likely take the mud from other sources to places closer to the supply of mud.

I was having a problem with mud daubers last month; I would see them going up in to the horizontal stabilizer.
So, I grabbed my garden sprayer filled with WD-40 and soaked the tail feathers thru every opening I could find.
Next day, I found two dead ones under the tail and havent seen any around since.

The stuff works.

You should use an old, empty, Aviation Simple Green spray bottle, after you pour the Simple Green into a cake pian of mud (it stains aluminum despite what they claim). If you use a garden sprayer with WD40 you'll have to submit a Form 337.