Aircraft that go to sea on a carrier live a terrible life compaired to their land based counterparts. Regular 14 day wash jobs are out due to the lack of fresh water, spray cans of Turco are used instead to clean the surfaces. The stress of carrier landings takes a toll on the airframe causing rivets to loosen the length of the fuselage between the wing and tail. Salt water gets into those voids and causes bleeding rivets as we called them. Repairs that need to be made are painted over in the patches and spots they cover. Flying schedules routinely cause a very crunched amount of down time to cover inspections and repair. It’s all a vicious cycle that is destroying the airframe at a rapid pace. I believe all Spitfires had magnesium rivets shot into aluminum skin and this would have caused Seafires to really bleed from dissimilar metal corrosion due to salt water contact. In my 48 month Navy tenure, I spent 23 months of that at sea in an A-6 Squadron just to show you the the amount of time those airframes were also at sea getting their tails flown off. After an 8 month cruise they just looked awful, like old spotted leopards as one CO put it...
Looking at the attachments one would think oil had leaked out of these rivets and while it will, it’s actually the rivets suffering from corrosion and the bleeding that takes place once they loosen and have a void created.
Any high stress area of the airframe will exhibit this pattern of degradation on a carrier aircraft. Also, Navy aircraft are not permitted to have chipping and worn off paint like their land based versions, as bare aluminum will suffer direct surface attack from salt spray. It’s a corrosion control measure that results in spotty repairs at sea.
Looking at the attachments one would think oil had leaked out of these rivets and while it will, it’s actually the rivets suffering from corrosion and the bleeding that takes place once they loosen and have a void created.
Any high stress area of the airframe will exhibit this pattern of degradation on a carrier aircraft. Also, Navy aircraft are not permitted to have chipping and worn off paint like their land based versions, as bare aluminum will suffer direct surface attack from salt spray. It’s a corrosion control measure that results in spotty repairs at sea.
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