Long-term outdoor display – expert advice please!!

Not the scrapyard Swift is it, please say it is!

Thanks for the feedback.

To put things into context, the airframe in question has been languishing outdoors for many years with very little TLC, but with no public access. Hopefully, the project will see some restoration work and a suitable budget for ongoing care and maintenance, which will see the aircraft on public display.

My personal preference would be to see the aircraft on a pole i.e out of reach of the graffiti artists and souvenir hunters!

I’ll go public with the details as soon as I can.

An historic airframe and putting it on long term outside display seems a little of a contradiction – have you considered the benefits for the airframe if any?

Here is an interesting site with a list of recovery/restoration tidbits. A BIG list of sites to dig through, but interesting .
http://www.thirtythousandfeet.com/restorat.htm

Good luck with your “project”. Anything near the coast, sea air…..say no more!!! Bare aluminum sounds like big trouble!

Go bare if you want… but budget for a lot of cleaning.. say every day and lots + lots of polish. Having looked after two bare metal airframes in a museum I would avoid it unless it is absolutely historically necessary. Polishing the airframes very quickly loses its appeal, but if you want to keep that ‘shine’ then its a requirement.

The issue is that the bare aluminium ‘protects’ itself by reacting with the oxygen in the air to create aluminium oxide, which is the dull finish you usually see…polishing merely removes the oxidised layer and leaves a ffresh layer exposed to the air. The reaction speed depends on anumber of factors…but being outside really does not help. Look for images of bare metal airframes at say Pima and you will see what they look like after a while…
Inhibitors are possible, but they are going to add their colour and texture to the metal, not the finish you are looking for….

Waxing the airframe is also a way of delaying the process, but it is very instensive and a decent wax is very expensive.

In the long run a high quality, reasonably high gloss finish will provide better protection of the airframe and a better display. The Coronado in Lucern; as detailed in Robert Mikesh’s book; is the reference in keeping a quality outdoor display. Even with the intensive maintenance it receives its easy to see dirt marks on the underside.

If you are in a position to completely repaint the airframe, then getting the correct paint for external use is the way forward.. especially if you are able to select a colour scheme that uses the colours which are avaliable. Not certain which is the current best paint for this…

If it needs specific ‘aricraft’ spec paints then the maintenance demands increase as they are not designed for such long term exposure.. as active ariframes are repainted/ cleaned ‘reasonably’ frequently.

Keep us posted.

A bare metal finish is going to be difficult to maintain in good order and sometimes can make the aircraft appear worse that it actually is if it is not kept to a high standard.A good paint finish is going to protect the airframe and preserve it.

May i ask how the airframe is going to be displayed, on a pole or ground level ?

The local seagulls could be a big problem and how will you protect it from other unwanted attention, tagging etc…

We are going for the opposite approach. Our Lightning was in bare metal finish, but in order to seal the holes invisibly, she needed to be painted. Paint is much easier to clean and preserve than bare ali…

Hi,

I strongly advise you get a copy of the following book.

http://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Museum-Aircraft-Robert-Mikesh/dp/1853108758

A whole chapter is devoted to the preperation, surface finishes, dehumidification, annual maintenance etc of the Swiss Air external exhibit.

Also covered are anti bird methods.

Regards
Ross