Cirrus disapproves vinyl wrapping and ceramic coatings

[blsewardjr]

One issue is the effect on static dissipation. This might be a problem of us as well.

[mfdutra]

If composites can't dissipate electricity through the wiring mesh, they explode. Not good if your wings are composite.

[Bryce]

Maybe good thing I decided against ceramic coating my DA62?

[dant]

One of the Galvin planes got wrapped. It looked awesome (advertisement for the owner's company), but sat for months while the owner tried to get it signed off as airworthy, which it never did and it went back to pure white. It was a little weird seeing a diamond without any stripes! I have a picture of it wrapped lying around somewhere.

[Soareyes]

I believe the main objection Cirrus has with ceramic coating is related to instances of precipitation static (P-static).

For an example, skip to 20:40 minutes in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLY7e2OCcPQ

[dant]

Is that static because of a ceramic coating he has? Or is that just something that happens in hard imc that I don't get the joy of experiencing in my "Gentleman's IFR" da40?

[Soareyes]

From what I’ve read P-static can happen to any plane under certain atmospheric conditions, usually near precipitation at close to freezing temps. I’ve never experienced it because I’m a weather weenie.

Cirrus had multiple reports of it around ten years ago and as a company got kind of sensitive to the subject. Apparently certain coatings cause more of a static build up than others. If you don’t fly a lot in that kind of weather you may never have a problem.