Flying in the rain

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abraxas

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abraxas
Hi all,

I generally avoid flying in the rain seeing that I fly mainly for pleasure. So I don't have a lot of experience there. In the last couple of weeks I couldn't avoid flying through some moderate rainfall. I noticed some peeling paint around some rivets and also a couple of bare spots on the cowling immediately behind the prop and a friend of mine said this is from flying in the rain. Is it this hard on paint? I was a little surprised. Like I said I don't have a lot of experience flying through rain. What are your experiences there?
 
While water has more erosive potential than most people realize, if your paint is peeling off then it wasn't put on very well or some corrosive element has gotten between it and the skin and broken the bond. I know that 10 minutes through a light shower at 100 kts is much more effective than two sweaty hours of hard labor on the wash rack.
 
I'd think if your paint comes off because you fly through rain, the plane wasn't painted properly. I fly through rain all the time, never observed my paint coming off, in any plane.
 
Silvaire said:
While water has more erosive potential than most people realize, if your paint is peeling off then it wasn't put on very well or some corrosive element has gotten between it and the skin and broken the bond.
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That is what I was thinking. This plane is only a year old with a couple of hundred hours on it so I was surprised that I could see this level of paint degradation from only a couple of flights in the rain. I didn't expect to see the paint take such a beating so quickly.
 
Much harder on the prop than the plane.
 
abraxas said:
That is what I was thinking. This plane is only a year old with a couple of hundred hours on it so I was surprised that I could see this level of paint degradation from only a couple of flights in the rain. I didn't expect to see the paint take such a beating so quickly.
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Paint is fickle stuff and the new age, environmentally friendly stuff is even more so. If the surface prep isn't done right or if they did the prep then went to lunch before spraying the paint this sort of thing can be the result.
 
I've seen it on leading edges over the years in quite a few cases.all types, mostly instrument equipped and flown.
 
Flew through a pretty heavy rain shower on a recent flight to Dallas, noticed a little paint missing from my spinner upon landing...probably a good indication that spinners shouldn't be painted, I'd prefer the "chrome" look anyway;)
 
MachFly said:
I'd think if your paint comes off because you fly through rain, the plane wasn't painted properly. I fly through rain all the time, never observed my paint coming off, in any plane.
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Jets fly through rain faster and more often than we do. They don't have a problem with the paint peeling.
 
Flying in the rain cools me off and gives my plane a free wash job. Never noticed any paint wear from it.
 
Some of the worst paint jobs I've seen on any type of vehicle, have been high dollar, or rather high markup, paint jobs on planes, complete with overspray, runs, etc etc.

If your paint is failing after flying through rain, it's your painter that failed not your paint.
 
At 100kts and the props acting like an air pump booster the rain acts a little like a power washer. Power washers can take paint off.
 
Crappy paint maybe.

I've been flying turboprops for a while now and our paint doesn't come off in rain, IMC, etc.
 
yes, very common to lose paint especially on props and engine cowlings
 
Silvaire said:
While water has more erosive potential than most people realize, if your paint is peeling off then it wasn't put on very well or some corrosive element has gotten between it and the skin and broken the bond. I know that 10 minutes through a light shower at 100 kts is much more effective than two sweaty hours of hard labor on the wash rack.
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Concur. I've flown through rain with no such effects. The rain may have helped reveal an underlying problem.
 
Jimmy cooper said:
No but when it hits the windscreen and your face you can certainly tell how it could damage leading edges at three times or four times that speed. Got it?
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No not really. Painted aluminum is a lot stronger than my face. I get what you're saying but it is not a correct comparison since the material properties of my face and my plane surfaces are somewhat different. Also I'm not sitting on the wing for a reason besides not enjoying the rain in my face I wouldn't care for the 150 mph breeze if you can call it that and possibly low temperatures. We would be talking about frostbite fairly rapidly again something that painted aluminum does not suffer from.
 
If you think rain is bad....

Was on an Airbus going into Riyadh, SA. Below about 10,000 feet it looked like red fog outside the window. It was SAND! The plane had a camera in the nose and we could not see the runway until just before we touched down (saw the lights first). Could not see the airport from the runway. Had to wonder what that did to the engines?

Paint was still on the plant though.:yes:
 
Fly through the rain quite often,great for removing heavy bug buildup. Not so good on the prop.aircraft paint shows no wear.
 
If you skydive in rain does it hurt more because you're hitting the pointy end of the raindrops? ;)
 
denverpilot said:
If you skydive in rain does it hurt more because you're hitting the pointy end of the raindrops? ;)
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Don't know about that, but it doesn't feel good, and that at 120mph, I tend to dislike getting my nylon wet more than the feeling of the rain though
 
Russell Danson said:
If you think rain is bad....

Was on an Airbus going into Riyadh, SA. Below about 10,000 feet it looked like red fog outside the window. It was SAND! The plane had a camera in the nose and we could not see the runway until just before we touched down (saw the lights first). Could not see the airport from the runway. Had to wonder what that did to the engines?

Paint was still on the plant though.:yes:
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Cleaned the turbine blades really nice. ;)
 
James331 said:
Don't know about that, but it doesn't feel good, and that at 120mph, I tend to dislike getting my nylon wet more than the feeling of the rain though
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Is terminal velocity of the human body higher or lower than a rain drop in the troposphere?
 
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