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DAHER-SOCATA is displaying a TBM 850 in a polished aluminium finish at this week’s NBAA convention in Las Vegas, which it says demonstrates its ability to meet unique customer personalisation requests.
Says the company: “To meet this customer personalisation request involved extra work time and research. The consequences of a bare metal finish needed to be investigated by the design office of DAHER-SOCATA Airplane Business Unit and the alclad supplier. Due to limited technical information on this kind of finish, DAHER-SOCATA engineers embarked on a test process to determine the viability of the in-service longevity of this finish. Once this process was complete the standard primer coat had to be removed off the already treated skins that involved over 250 man hours of hand work. This was followed by the application of polishing compounds to bring about a high lustre finish, that subsequently completed by a final polish phase performed by a US specialist in California.”
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DAHER-SOCATA says the aircraft is 50kg lighter than a standard TBM 850. Inside the aircraft features a black onyx cabin interior with carbon fibre fittings.
BANKS
says:lol watch this thing have massive corrosion issues
Marko
says:WOW! That has to be one of the best looking TBMs ever built!
If the Operator provides the care outlined in the Manufacturer’s Maintenance Manual, there will be no issues with corrosion. (American Airlines Livery included polished airframes, with multiple makes & models, for decades.)
Most of the award winning Warbirds (P51s and P40s) at Oshkosh are …POLISHED! First generation jet fighters were polished (unless they were based on an aircraft carrier). Paint had a more important attribute – camoflauge followed by the attenuation of radar returns.
adammudhen
says:Great looking aircraft, that’ll stand out on a flight line.
Wayne
says:Great look.
Banks says “massive corrosion issues”! Why? Many aircraft have been flying for decades with polished surfaces…
JACK CAIRNS
says:HI FOLKS – THAT IS NONSENSE ABOUT CORROSION – ASK AMERICAN AIRLINES + MILITARY – HAVE SPENT 55 YRS WORKING ON MIL. + CIVIL AIRPLANES – INC. FLYING BOATS + C.A.V.N. OPS. – NEVER SAW ONE CORRODED ON OUTER SKINS DUE TO POLISHED A.A. FINISH – J.C.
BANKS
says:That’s why we see all the major manufactures not painting their aircraft… lol
The maintenance and risk associated with having unpainted surfaces, especially ones operating in and around water is indisputably massive. There’s a reason aircraft and metal in general is painted and I can tell you it’s not for camouflage…
All metals corrode, painting them reduces/stops the rate of oxidisation.
The issue is the maintenance involved with polished surfaces is so labour intensive and expensive many people let it go and that’s when they have issues. The fact that this aircraft was never design to be bare in the first place adds to the risk that it will have corrosion issues down the track.
Metro’s unpainted wings, spar issues and continuous surface corrosion…
Unpainted dissimilar metals, recipe for disaster.
Jack, if you’ve never seen corrosion on a “flying boat” you obviously did it with your eyes closed…