Mice
Mouse pee corrosion prevention

by Ed Burkhead

Each discussion of protecting Coupes against mouse invasion and mouse pee corrosion frequently leads off with the claim that laundry dryer sheets make the vehicle repulsive.  (This same discussion comes up frequently in camping trailer discussions, too.)

I've heard as many attestations that the dryer sheets are useless as claims that they helped.

Moth balls are also claimed as deterrants.
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Peoria area Aircouper, Roy Prugh, fashioned mouse wall wheel protectors from sheet aluminum.

He made boxes with floors and four side walls.  The front wall is hinged and lies down flat so he can roll the plane back into the three boxes.  Though Roy uses these inside his hangar, he nevertheless installed stainless steel screens in the bottom (?bottom of the sides?) to let water escape if any got inside the boxes.

Each box is as high as he could make it and still clear the aircraft structure, i.e. wing trailing edges.  (A pert tail, well up in the air, helps with this.)  I don't know if his nose wheel box is low enough for the belly and belly beacon to pass over it or if he slides it into place just before backing the plane the last two-feet.

Once the doors are latched up, a mouse would have to jump vertically about a foot to get over the rim.
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Also key, if you can manage it, is to get the plane as far as you can from the nearest grass.  Mice are reluctant to travel huge distances across bare asphalt or cement in the hopes that the strange objects in the distance are food or shelter.  Parking right next to the grass is to be avoided, if you can.  Tie-downs near fields of crops are extra bad.
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Baited mouse traps inside the plane, frequently emptied and recharged can minimize the amount of mouse pee on your critical structures if you can't prevent intrusions.  Allowing a colony to live a happy life in your plane, peeing frequently over a long time — well — it'd be better to sell the plane to someone who could care for it.