4 ms·
On an aircraft that has a mixture of polished and painted surfaces, the painted surfaces often aren't bare aluminum. Often that's the wing root fairings, wingle
by handedness 7y ago
On an aircraft that has a mixture of polished and painted surfaces, the painted surfaces often aren't bare aluminum. Often that's the wing root fairings, winglets, nacelles, radar cones, vertical stabilizer, and so on.
- hinkley 7y agoI don’t think I was meant to get a giggle out of this. Can you explain using other words? Of course a painted surface isn’t bare. It’s got paint on it. Did you mean it’s not aluminum? Or a different grade?
- handedness 7y agoThanks, I laughed at it myself, in hindsight. I should have stipulated "underneath" and likely appended an "if you follow...". Yes, well, they may either be materials that have other surface textures/coatings/treatments/finishes that aren't conducive to polishing, or they may be other metals, or non-metallic composites (can't put aluminum over a radar, for example), and so on. TL;DR: The painted surfaces are generally instances in which polished aluminum won't really work, for a variety of reasons.