CF-18

[Go Juice]

Why does our f-18's look so dirty? Is it a budget thing?

Cheers

[longjon]

Combat A/C don't get washed like your KIA . Jeeeeezzzzz

[Go Juice]

I get it. And understand. I just noticed ours look a lot dirty in comparison with other countries. From what I see on the interweb anyways.

Not meant to be a jab to our boys in the RCAF btw. Much respect

[trampbike]

They just look better that way

[frosti]

They get washed every 100 flight hours or so. For some it could be a year depending on how good of a flyer it is.

[Rockie]

European skies used to be full of pollutants which seemed to obsorb easily into the paint our jets are painted with, and we had the dirtiest airplanes in theatre no matter how much elbow grease the boys used on them. Everybody else seemed to use a more glossy paint that cleaned up better.

[parallel60]

We like our Canadian Fighters like we like our men and woman.....dirty.

[co-joe]

I think titanium is hard to wash. Or the CF hasn't discovered blue Zepp!

[John Desramaux]

This one looks a little cleaner .......

[lownslow]

I think the simple answer is matte paint doesn't clean well, if at all. This is why many vintage warbirds you see at air shows are incorrectly painted in glossy colours, otherwise they'd need a complete repaint every couple of years to keep from looking shabby.

[PostmasterGeneral]

You think the CF-18's are bad, have you ever seen the snowbirds up close?

[Gannet167]

I've seen the snowbirds up close many times. I've always been impressed with how spotless they are. The ground crews take a great deal of pride in making sure they're in awfully good condition.

[John Desramaux]

This Tutor looks pretty nice...from Sep 2 2015 Brantford Airshow

[frosti]

I think the simple answer is matte paint doesn't clean well, if at all.

It doesn't, plus the pads they give us to scrub the paint are useless, not to mention the soap. There was a trial done where we basically used large magic erasers, I guess they were so good at removing the dirt they took paint with it. So now we just make sure the landing gear is white and we can still see lettering on the paint. ISIL or the Russians don't care how clean our jets are away.