Airbus paint troubles again

[west point]

Airlines around the world have raised concerns about Airbus' A350 paint issues, and now Qatar is seeking over $600 million in damages from the planemaker (msn.com)

This is not a new problem. When EAL ordered A-300B4 it wanted to only have its hockey stick stripe on the fuselauge. Airbus said it all had to be painted so EAL got them that way. EAL maintenance noted a few paint flake offs and corrected the problem ASAP.
Those of you back in the day noted that AA ( American ) had all their airplanes unpainted except for various lettering. 9Great silver fleet) American of course wanted their A300 orders to be the same but again Airbus said no. So American settled on a gray paint job that was close to the no paint job.

You may now wonder why? Airbus aluminum is not non-corrosive so has to be painted and repainted over time. Have to wonder how much cost savings that specification saves? When airbus airplanes go into storage internal corrosion is often the reason. Kiss them goodby for ever.

 

[cocojacoby]

From what I have read, paint on an airplane is heavy and it results in more fuel use. Having unpainted fuselages like American has saves a lot of operating costs.

 

[Ryan]

This is (purportedly) the origin of the "Silver Arrow" nickname for Mercedes racing cars, as when they showed up to the Nürburgring in 1934, they had a car that was 1 kilo too heavy. After a little bit of time with a grinder, the white pant was replaced by bare silver metal and the car made weight.

 

[jis]

You may now wonder why? Airbus aluminum is not non-corrosive so has to be painted and repainted over time. Have to wonder how much cost savings that specification saves? When airbus airplanes go into storage internal corrosion is often the reason. Kiss them goodby for ever.

Maybe I am remembering something wrong, but my impression is that the current A350 paint issue, which the article quoted is about, is for paint on carbon fiber body panels decaying faster than originally planned, under the intense Middleast Sun or something like that. Anyway there is very little pure Aluminum in the 350. It is 53% Composite, 19% Al-Li (Glare), 14% Titanium, 6% Steel and 8% other materials. Whatever might have been the case with A300s does not hold any more. Technology has moved along a long way. It is an entirely new problem for new materials.

 

[jiml]

From what I have read, paint on an airplane is heavy and it results in more fuel use. Having unpainted fuselages like American has saves a lot of operating costs.

Unfortunately, it's like American had. Almost all their recent fleet additions are painted. Only a few of the sparkling silver birds remain.

 

[jis]

Unfortunately, it's like American had. Almost all their recent fleet additions are painted. Only a few of the sparkling silver birds remain.

Then again, there is the issue of what does an unpainted CFR fuselage look like? Black? That as I recall is the color of the fiber and the biding resin at least as they were being rolled onto mandrels at the Boeing Everett facility. But I suppose you could make then any other color perhaps

 

[jiml]

Then again, there is the issue of what does an unpainted CFR fuselage look like? Black? That as I recall is the color of the fiber and the biding resin at least as they were being rolled onto mandrels at the Boeing Everett facility. But I suppose you could make then any other color perhaps

I would think the problem would be consistency from facility to facility, let alone between Boeing and Airbus. Not sure AA (or any other airline) would be happy with multiple shades of grey, for example, in their fleet.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

From what I have read, paint on an airplane is heavy and it results in more fuel use. Having unpainted fuselages like American has saves a lot of operating costs.

Aircraft with aluminum skin weigh substantially more than composite aircraft of similar size with anticorrosive paint.

Maybe I am remembering something wrong, but my impression is that the current A350 paint issue, which the article quoted is about, is for paint on carbon fiber body panels decaying faster than originally planned, under the intense Middleast Sun or something like that.

The dispute seems to be about how the lightning mitigation mesh interacts with the overlying paint and underlying panels. Perhaps a more practical solution is for Airbus to pay off a portion of QR's initial grounding costs and to underwrite future airworthiness problems related to skin deterioration of properly maintained composite aircraft.