Originally Posted by
wanabee777
It's amazing how they're able to maintain helicopters which are exposed to all that salt water spray.
Naval aircraft are (usually) built to a higher standard to resist corrosion; often those standards have been learned the hard way through experience. Early attempts to save weight involved the use of skinning with a magnesium based alloy, but when you could hear the magnesium crackling as it dissolved after a ditching, rendering the salvaged aircraft into scrap, that was one idea soon consigned to Bin 13!
Another true story: a chinless wonder in the Treasury took exception to the vast amount spent on WD40 by the RN, and identified the cost of gallons that were sprayed into jet engines as they spooled down on the flight deck at sea.
Great savings were made, until the overhaul failure rate of Buccaneer Spey engines quadrupled to something like 100 times the savings made on WD40. Shut down sprays were soon reintroduced
