Tied Down Outside In A Coastal Area?

[Marauder]

It being my only possibility I'm interested in hearing from those who've tied down an aircraft outside in a coastal area about any maintenance/repair issues you believe that environment has caused.

[Dana]

I had my T-Craft tied down about seven miles from the ocean for a few years and at one point had to replace rotted lower longerons in the tail, but that's probably due to years outside in general, not being on the coast specifically.

[Bill Berson]

My plane was tied about 1/2 mile from the ocean for about 30 years. I don't see any difference with corrosion if it gets flown often.

[Airmutt]

Marine atmospheres contain chlorides such as salt particles or droplets of salt-saturated water. Since salt solutions are electrolytes, they corrosively attack aluminum and magnesium alloys. Some alloys are resistant corrosion better due to their chemical makeup.
The USN P-3 community had a mandatory wash requirement if operated below something like 1000 ft AGL over salt water. Even still corrosion was a long term problem.

[flyrgreen]

As Airmutt says, coastal air is very salty. He mentions airframe corrosion, and that's something to watch for. But electrical connections are also very prone to this same corrosion. Headset jacks, push-to-talk switches, paddle connectors in the battery area and behind the panel, etc. These will need to be sprayed with electrical contact cleaner from time to time.

If the coastal area is in the Florida to North Carolina area, you will also need to be familiar with repairing hail & tornado damage. Just sayin'........

[Marauder]

As Airmutt says, coastal air is very salty. He mentions airframe corrosion, and that's something to watch for. But electrical connections are also very prone to this same corrosion. Headset jacks, push-to-talk switches, paddle connectors in the battery area and behind the panel, etc. These will need to be sprayed with electrical contact cleaner from time to time.

If the coastal area is in the Florida to North Carolina area, you will also need to be familiar with repairing hail & tornado damage. Just sayin'........


What I don't quite 'get', especially about electrical issues, is my car is parked outside about the same distance if not closer to the ocean than the airport I have in mind and shows very little effect from being there and modern cars are nothing if not dependent on electrical connections to make their way through the world..

[Sam Buchanan]

What I don't quite 'get', especially about electrical issues, is my car is parked outside about the same distance if not closer to the ocean than the airport I have in mind and shows very little effect from being there and modern cars are nothing if not dependent on electrical connections to make their way through the world..

Manufacturers of modern cars go to great length to hermetically seal connections in wiring harnesses and switches. The same care usually isn't present in our 'primitive' aircraft wiring and components.

[thisadviceisworthles]

I did extensive research about exposure issues before I bought my aircraft.

I'm not by the coast, but one of the most informative videos I found about corrosion was MZeroA's repair video for a 172 that was damaged in high wind. Apparently it had serious, unknown corrosion issues from it's time in Tampa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NmTeVwN3cg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NmTeVwN3cg)

[Marauder]

Manufacturers of modern cars go to great length to hermetically seal connections in wiring harnesses and switches. The same care usually isn't present in our 'primitive' aircraft wiring and components.

I can only speak from experience that my car is 19 years old and certainly doesn't have hermetically sealed connectors in the harness and switches yet continues with no electrical issues due to environmental conditions.

[Marauder]

I did extensive research about exposure issues before I bought my aircraft.

I'm not by the coast, but one of the most informative videos I found about corrosion was MZeroA's repair video for a 172 that was damaged in high wind. Apparently it had serious, unknown corrosion issues from it's time in Tampa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NmTeVwN3cg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NmTeVwN3cg)


Scary stuff there, thanks for posting this video. Don't know when it was made but one thing that kind of surprised me was a shop so deeply involved in inspection/repair didn't already have a borescope.

[Sam Buchanan]

I can only speak from experience that my car is 19 years old and certainly doesn't have hermetically sealed connectors in the harness and switches yet continues with no electrical issues due to environmental conditions.

Glad you've gotten good service from your chariot. The late model connectors I've pulled apart usually have a rubber boot and/or some sort of grease on the contacts. Unfortunately, the service depts in many dealerships are not as reliable as the wiring.........

[Airmutt]

What badly corroded wing...that was accident looking for a place to happen. Guess there was a reason for Cessna to start adding corrosion protection. Local flying club replaced its 172 wings at 10k hours. I see Cessna now has a Special Inspection document going out to 30k hours. WOW!!! Personally I think 10k hours is a good mark to have the wings replaced and I would check the horizontal stab spar too. I suspect the landing gear torque box is also a susceptible area for fatigue and would have to be looked out at down the road., especially for trainers with a high number of landing cycles.

[thisadviceisworthles]

Scary stuff there, thanks for posting this video. Don't know when it was made but one thing that kind of surprised me was a shop so deeply involved in inspection/repair didn't already have a borescope.

That suprised me too.

[flyrgreen]

My car is an 18 year old low-budget vehicle and all the connections have some sort of overlapping boots that are tight fitting. The ones that get pulled apart from time to time for maintenance, like headlights, are made of rubber. I'd be very surprised if your 19 year old car doesn't have same.

To be more particular about my original comment about connector corrosion--- this does not seem to be a problem for connectors like ring ends that are clamped together tightly. Paddle ends that are male/female and can be pulled apart definitely will corrode. I live in a coastal area and have had this issue with every one of my 3 planes. And even a ring connector, if a little loose, will also corrode. Found one behind the panel recently. Yes, that was a hair-pulling, new cuss words adventure in finding out why more than 1 but not all electronic gizmos were acting mysterious. Quite a relief tho when 10 cents worth of electro-spray and a screwdriver solved the problem!

[Marauder]

My car is an 18 year old low-budget vehicle and all the connections have some sort of overlapping boots that are tight fitting. The ones that get pulled apart from time to time for maintenance, like headlights, are made of rubber. I'd be very surprised if your 19 year old car doesn't have same.




The connections under the dash are for the most part blade type contacts in plastic housings with no rubber boots and after 19 years things still function as intended. The only issue I've had that seems environmental is on mornings when there is a lot of condensation, I may have to drive a mile or two with the radio on before the CD player works properly which I believe is due to condensation on the laser lens needing the heat of the radio to evaporate, not necessarily salt in the air. I've had this happen with two Bose auto systems so don't know if it's the norm for CD players in general.

I also received the following from an associate of CX-4 designer Dave Thatcher: " Dave's original 4 was tied down outside here in Pensacola /salty air for ten years with no appreciable corrosion. It was 1 mile from the bay and 7 miles from the Gulf." Of course that's with a 6061 T6 structure as opposed to the more common factory (I believe) 2024 T4 structure.

While I have no doubt marine air isn't an ideal environment, I continue to see many aircraft tied down outside. At times it seems pretty much a crap-shoot as to what the results may be.

[Mike M]

"The Cleaning and Corrosion Control manual was established jointly by the Navy, Air Force, and Army as a combined effort to consolidate and coordinate corrosion control best practices for aircraft and avionics."

https://www.navybmr.com/study%20material/NAVAIR%2001-1A-509-1.pdf
https://www.navybmr.com/study%20material/NAVAIR%2001-1A-509-2.pdf