Aircraft Maintenance

In aviation as in fashion and the movies, good looks count. This is why aircraft paint jobs need to look as perfect as possible; be they adorning a Beechcraft Bonanza or an Airbus A380.

The actual task of painting aircraft is extremely time-consuming and complex. This is why "we request our customers give us 30 days to paint their aircraft," says Chuck Siehr. He is the regional group sales manager for the northern United States and Canada, at Landmark Aviation in Springfield, IL. "Painting an aircraft properly is both a science and an art form, requiring skilled and patient technicians."

So how do the pros do it, and what can you learn from them? Here's what AMT learned from talking to Siehr and Jim Burress, general manager of Dean Baldwin Painting in Roswell, NM.

Preparing the canvas

In aviation painting, the aircraft serves as the canvas, and what a canvas it can be! Even the smallest aircraft has hard-to-reach places to spray-paint; requiring the use of special platforms. In the case of large aircraft like the B747, these platforms can be a few stories in height.

But size is just the beginning. Whatever their size, aircraft all contain parts that aren't meant to be painted. This requires technicians to cover them using specialized barrier materials, including paper, mylars, and tapes. In the case of a Boeing 777-200LR, for instance, the nacelles on each of its two GE90-110B1 turbofans have diameters measuring 11.25 feet across. That's a lot of paper and tape!

The masking process becomes doubly important when an aircraft is being repainted. This is because the aircraft is stripped of its existing paint job before the new livery is applied. Not only does this ensure better adhesion to the airframe, and a chance to look for telltale signs of corrosion on the aircraft's stripped skin, but it also helps keep weight down, thus fuel costs down. According to Boeing, a complete fuselage and tail paint job on a 747-400 weighs 555 pounds.

Meanwhile, even brand-new airframes require masking and surface preparation before paint is applied. Specifically, the skin is chemically etched using phosphoric acid, to "roughen up" the surface and give the paint something to stick to.