"Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message
oups.com...
I think we all know what old aluminum planes look like. But what do
old composite planes look like?

Just visit any gliderport. Glass gliders have been popular for decades now.

Are they less susceptible to hanger rash and faded paint?

No!

One thing that has been learned is that gellcoat is generally something to be
avoided. To refinish gellcoat, one must first carefully wetsand the entire
original coating out of existince withuout sanding away any structure. This a
process that can cost several tens of thousands. Some gliders are actually
shipped to eastern block nations for the job due to cheaper labor costs. Newer
gliders are mostly painted, rather than gellcoated.

Since you mention faded paint, there are usually limitations on paint colors
due to temperature rise of the structure in the hot sun.

Also, composite structures are not always as stable as one would like. Some
gliders have needed their wings to be expensively reprofiled due to spar
shrinkage which warped the wing skins.

The above list of woes should not be taken as evidence that composite
aircraft structures are a bad idea. There are good reasons why virtually all
new high performance gliders are now of composite construction!

Vaughn