MY DA40 has the pox

[Lance Murray]

Lesions? Our airplanes might have teenage acne not Herpes!

[Lance Murray]

My bubbles seem to cause failure between the primer and paint. What is interesting to me is that it is only on the top surfaces where moisture/water would sit while the airplane was parked outside. They only showed up after an extended wet period and when it was cold.

Either way It could be easily sanded and repainted. I just haven't found a shop I trust that is reasonable yet. When I do it I suppose I will do a custom higher quality paint job. In the meantime I'm not worrying about it.

[astaib]

I checked this morning on mine (40.026).
And I also have this on the command ...

[Rich]

I've mostly come to ignore these things over the years, so I took a closer look today. They're much smaller than the numbers I posted. In the right light they're easy to see but too small to get a real measurement with the tools I have available. They are prominent on the upper surfaces of the wings and the passenger door, present but barely discernible on the upper cowl. Sparsely present on the wingtips and fuselage. I really can't detect any on the flaps or ailerons. I haven't double-checked stabilizer or elevator. But again, only on upper surfaces where present.

I do live in a much drier climate than the one in which these first appeared, and the plane has been hangared since moving here in summer '15. However, there are times (after a heavy rain or during snow-melt cycles) when water condenses inside the hangar roof/ceiling and drips onto portions of the plane.

[perossichi]

Just polished my plane 40.212 as I do twice a year. I use a two part sealer called Wx block.

I am very observant and the surfaces on all parts of my plane are perfectly smooth like mirror until this week. In addition, Had my plane outside with only a fuselage cover for the first two years I’ve owned the plane.

This fall I bought a hangar. However, I had a long annual with the plane sitting outside for two weeks plus while cowl repairs were made for poweflo installation. It was a very rainy period.

Yesterday as I was polishing the plane and noticed that the horizontal stabilizer (top only) was pretty bad with pox just like in the posted photos. The fuselage has no pox. Only about a 1/3 of the right wing has pox that are similar to tail surface but not as rough. The left wing has nothing.

Based on what I’ve read here I think it created by a lot of rain. The plane was out in almost continuous rain for two weeks.

The previous two years outside did nothing in strong sun and pretty high temps.

[Rich]

Today I washed the plane and during that delightful exercise (I love the taste of Simple Green dripping off the belly into my mouth - not to mention eyes and everywhere else) ... what was I saying? Oh, yes:

I got to wondering whether choice of cleaning/waxing compounds might play a role in causing the little bumpy things. I've always used Simple Green as the cleaner, but I never noticed this reverse-acne phenomenon until after I had someone else clean and wax the plane a few years ago.

Anyway, just a random thought while performing this most beloved of chores.