Sorry to read this news Patrick. I sent you a PM.
Very sorry to read about your mishap, Patrick. I would have it inspected before continuing.
Neil wrote:
I have flown an aircraft with much less damage than that, and also the damage was between the ribs. An engineer had inspected it and said it was OK to fly.Whilst the handling appeared unaffected in normal flight, the behaviour at the stall was somewhat unusual to say the least. Violent wing drop
That would be (by far) my biggest concern.
Inspection of a damaged structure will determine that its a damaged structure, which we already knew. Whoever does the inspection will not likely be qualified to determine the airworthiness of the structure as it sits. Aircraft mechanics are in general neither engineers nor aerodynamics experts.
I’m clearly in a minority of one, but I can’t see how the structure of the wing has been significantly affected. The dent is nowhere near a spar and the stressed skin over the spars is unaffected.
OTOH, the skin has been work-hardened in the area of the dent, so it may start to crack after some tens or hundreds of hours.
As for how it flies, yes, it may give rise to uncommanded roll deep in the stall. But even a C150 or a Maule will do that if sufficiently abused and if we can’t cope with that we shouldn’t be PIC.
I agree, Jacko, and obviously it did fly afterwards.
However it is most likely not legal to depart like that.
I had a similar issue some years ago, with VS damage in a hangar. It was not near a rib and was filled in while a new VS was sourced by the hangar owner, which took 6 months of which 5.5 months was obtaining the matching paint from France 
Thanks all for the (mostly ) unanimous advice but certainly for differing opinions, too. 
Turns out today was a bit of a lucky day: I walked to the airfield early in the morning (btw, more details in the trip report to come, but Castello LECN is very, very recommended. The strip is literally almost on the beach, very nice scenery, some hotels and restaurants nearby. I’m paying 23 EUR/night for a room with A/C, TV and with a view of the promenade and the beach, which is 50-100 m away. But I’m digressing). There are no mechanicos at the field, but just as I was asking around, an SUV with two Diamond/Piper mechanics pulled up who are now here for two days to do maintenance on a Seneca that is based here. They were so nice to inspect the damage with me. We had a view inside the wing from both sides through the access holes. The rib looks fine. The guy then tried to straighten the dent from the inside with his thumb and the curved handle of a screwdriver. This worked pretty okay. There is still a dent, obviously, but much less than before. I tried to capture the result on a photo but that seems not to work so well: On the photo, it looks unchanged to yesterday. But pending the opinion of the operating aeroclub’s mechanic in Paderborn, who I sent the photos to for review, I think I’m good to go once the thunderstorms in the south are no factor anymore.
I have to admit, that I wouldn’t have thought there was much of a problem. The plane flew fine afterwards, and as it was an airborne incident, it was free to turn on impact (to absort the impact and minimise any damage). That’s very different to a ground incident where the landing gear creates a resistence to turning.
But in the end, even if you’re happy to depart, it will be the club’s engineer’s call. I’d call them (as you have) and ask advice. They say “good to go” then I’d go. They say “No way. Need to get it fixed” then that’s what you have to do.
I used to fly a GA type twin around commercially doing various bits and bobs, one of which was a cargo run at night. One night when one of the other guys was flying the cargo delivery truck reversed into the stabilator leaving a dent very similar to this one. Our engineers had a look at it and said it was fine and would be repaired at the next scheduled mx, however when flying the next night the aircraft was ramp checked in none home country, and was ‘grounded’ in a strange way by that countries inspectors who essentially said ‘we won’t ground you here, we will let you continue your flight back to your home country (which did NOT coincide with home base) but then please send us a scan of the tech log entry’.
So basically then after completing the next leg the aircraft was grounded and we had to ferry over engineers and parts to fix it.
In sympathy with Jacko’s comment, the strutted Cessna wing has excellent in service history and I can think of several examples with modest bird strike dents which were OK’d after checking, as your friendly engineers have done for you.
RobertL18C wrote:
In sympathy with Jacko’s comment, the strutted Cessna wing has excellent in service history and I can think of several examples with modest bird strike dents which were OK’d after checking, as your friendly engineers have done for you.
Isn’t this an un-strutted Piper?
