A320 IAE Eng Inlet Polished?
 

Today I had an aircraft with a shiny/polished inlet on Eng1 and a normal/dull inlet on Eng2. Deep inside the dark recesses of my memory I seem to recall something about never polishing the inlets and that the dull finish is part of the anti-ice certification for the IAE2500. Does this ring a bell to anyone?

I know this was absolutely true of the PW305A on the Lear 60 (had a well-meaning lineman ground a plane when he took a polishing wheel to the engines. Big $$...)

Thoughts? References? Therapy?

I thought this would be a juicy subject that someone would have some in depth knowledge on.

There has to be an IAE Tech Rep out there somewhere that can explain the dulled inlets.

The dull finish I've observed on intakes seems to be due to oxidisation. Thousands of miles at cruise will take the shine off most things! :}

A lot of corporate Aircraft including Air Force 1 and Donald Trumps 757 have nice shiny polished intakes.

Looks nice but would be hard to keep that way, hence only flashy corporate Jets have them.

Not possible to intelligently comment unless pictures are posted that confirm what is actually polished.

Engine manufacturers do not play a significant part in deciding what goes in front of the engine and do not qualify acceptance criteria regarding inlets polished or not.

That's not accurate. As I posted, the P&W 305 on the Lear60 had the dulled, slightly rough inlets and we were told they should never be polished like the inlets on the earlier Lears because the finish was related to the ENG ANTI-ICE. Seeing the IAE V2500 on the A320 has the same finish, I'm curious as to the actual engineering reason, if there is one.

It very well could be that the inlet was shiny from thousands of hours of being polished by rain, bugs, and rampers' sweat. The difference between the two engines in question was enough to catch my attention on the preflight.

"It very well could be that the inlet was shiny from thousands of hours of being polished by rain, bugs, and rampers' sweat. The difference between the two engines in question was enough to catch my attention on the preflight."


I think quite the opposite would be true. ;)

As lomapaseo says, the engine manufacturers have no say in what gets bolted on the front, or back for that matter (TRUs).

The spinner in the centre of the fan has an anti ice function, from memory it's a no go item.