USAF paint?

The U.S. Army Air Forces Strips Its Planes of Paint | Defense Media Network

Went looking to see what paint the USAF currently used and came across this from WW2.

Pretty cool...some of you probably know this, but 10lbs a gallon? Interesting stuff re performance gains after paint stripping, coupled with at the time the policy was enacted, we had established air superiority in the various theatres and no longer needed to 'hide'.

 

A gallon of sea water weighs around 8.5 lbs, so easy to see lead based paint weighing 10 lbs or more.

 

I assume that's 10 lbs after evaporation of liquids.

 

This makes me remember a story my Dad's friend Mike Nelson (he was a USAF mechanic and just recently passed away) told me. FNG's and screw ups would be given the job of polishing the aluminum skin of some jets since the pilots thought it made them faster.

 

The olive drab with which our airplanes were painted was not only heavy but it contained an additive (Syloid 78) to make it dull. It imparted a roughness to the dried coat that did rob some speed. Some WW2 fighter pilots polished their airplanes with wax and claim to have gained "a lot of speed". The Germans and British paints were smooth, however.

 

I'm not gonna go look it up right now but when figuring the fuel flow in the C-130E/H models there was a point or two added to the drag index for "rough paint". The baseline presumably being a "slick"/bare aircraft in original non modified configuration.

On the fighter side of the house there was a special F-15 called the Streak Eagle that was used to set some time to climb records a few decades back. It had no paint for weight savings.
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If I remember right, the F-4G and E's I worked on had a couple hundred pounds of paint on them (gray scheme). It was a poly urethane paint of some sort, imron maybe?

 

Bob,

Haven't you read "I flew for the Fuhrer" by Heinz Knoke? He tells about his mechanic polishing the matt paint on his Messerschmitt 109G to gain a few extra kph to catch the "Mosquito(es)"

Rgds

 

Crew chiefs waxed the F-86s in the Korean War, too, even though they were bare aluminum. The wax filled in panel joints and flush rivet bumps/holes and was proven good for a few extra knots. It helped against the Mig-15.

 

Yep, its been on display at the Air Force Museum (Wright-Patterson AFB) since the early 80's. I think they painted it though since it was parked outside when they first got it.

 

I haven't read the book that you mentioned but I will when I have time. Time. That is a precious commodity right now. I have just finished preparing 22 pieces of art to display at the Museum Of Flight next May for the celebration of Boeing's 100th year. I am working on a couple of paintings in my spare time so reading is on the back burner and on low simmer. British paint specs for their fighters called for the undersurface to be painted in " Sky, Type Smooth". I always wondered what that meant and I finally found out that the German camo paints were much smoother than the Brits. They finally figured out how to duplicate it and applied it to their aircraft .

 

Paint is darn heavy too as anyone who's dragged a 5 gallon can around knows!

I'd guess maybe 20 gallons to do a fighter. That's quite a lot of weight in the scheme of things.

Cheers,
Ian

 

I think that some airplanes with the fancy graphics have had their livery pasted on. You can't paint some of the stuff that I have seen.

 

Agreed.

Seems 'they' were doing what we'd now call 'wraps' (on cars) long before 'we' (car guys) figured it out.

Cool stuff no matter. Again, can't see it working in the RAF, but it's all good.

Cheers,
Ian

 

The paint gets quite a bit lighter when dry. Liquids evaporate.

 

Isn't that a reason that American Airlines didn't paint their planes.

I think I read that they saved tens of hundreds of millions of dollars a year by not painting their planes.

 

They would have to spend something on burnishing over the digs and scratches incurred in normal operations. The internal alloy has to be covered or corrosion can replace the cost of the paint. An airline in Hawaii found that out.

 

T- When paint dries, the liquids do not evaporate, they harden, so weight does not change that much. There is a little evaporation, but not much.

 

I remember having read, probably in the book on the Spitfire by Alfred Price, That on the "Speed Spitfire", a variant That was supposed to capture the speed record in 1940, the panel joints were filled with putty, sanded smooth, then the Whole aeroplane was painted, wet sanded, then painted again by automotive painters to be smooth as glass.
Rgds

 

Who knew. I remember him telling me the story but I never thought it was true.

 

The paint 'vehicle', water and solvents, can represent a substantial percentage of the weight. These components do evaporate. Here is one example where the solvents represent anywhere from 10-40%.
http://www.paintdocs.com/docs/webPDF.jsp?SITEID=SWAERO&prodno=Y&doctype=MSDS&lang=2
Another article mentioned that in a spray booth a significant percentage of the product never ends up on the article being painted. So if you used 5 gallons to paint an aircraft (Cessna) possibly less than 3 gals actually stuck to the aircraft, of which a significant percentage evaporated.

 

I know a little about commercial airline in the early days. Most commercial planes had minimal paint schemes. Most just the name of the airline.

 

A quick Google search yielded an interesting publication by Boeing. Looks like it might be over 15 years old. But interesting to see some figures.

Painting versus Polishing of Airplane Exterior Surfaces

 

Bob -
A long ago girlfriends' father flew Corsairs in the Pacific (was close to an 'Ace'). He told me he had his chief constantly polishing the leading edge surfaces of wings & empennage with SHOE POLISH; he was convinced he could outrun Zeros because of that.....was 'gospel' in his squadron.....

 

Thanks, I'm convinced that this was done many times in many places.