Boeing Plans Plastic-Wrapped Fighter Jet

To improve performance and lower maintenance costs on the proposed Joint Strike Fighter, Boeing has teamed up with the people who brought you Post-it Notes.

Instead of painting the one-plane-fits-all fighter of the 21st century, Boeing and 3M will, in a sense, wrap the plane with the aerospace equivalent of Contact paper.

Why? It weighs less than paint; prevents corrosion; costs less to maintain and improves performance.

One fringe beneficiary: the environment. Up to 90 percent of the hazardous materials used in aerospace are associated with painting and stripping planes. Using a thin, durable, plastic film should reduce the clean-up costs substantially.

The paint-free approach grew out of the keep-the-costs-down mentality that has emerged in Pentagon procurement since the end of the Cold War. So did the Joint Strike Fighter program - an effort to develop a single fighter plane that could be used for the differing missions of the Navy, Air Force, Marines and the British Royal Navy.

Boeing was selected last fall as one of two finalists to design and build the Joint Strike Fighter, which could be worth $168 billion to the company.

The win gave both Boeing and Lockheed four-year, $660 million contracts so each could build models that will face off four years from now. Both will strive to prove that their versions will perform as promised; cost significantly less than previous fighter jets; and outperform the competition.

Winner takes all - a contract to build 3,000 fighters for the U.S. military, 60 for the Royal Navy and perhaps 1,000 to 2,000 from other foreign customers. Estimates of the contract’s value range from $170 billion to $1 trillion.

Boeing’s candidate is relatively small - 45 feet long and 30 to 36 feet wide, depending on model. The plane must be able to land on an American flattop, on the curved deck of a British carrier, on a conventional runway and - for the Marines - take off and land vertically, like a helicopter.

Boeing has pledged to deliver the planes, if it gets the production contract for between $28 million and $38 million, depending on model. That’s a bit less than the list price of a Boeing 737 commercial jetliner and about one-fourth the cost of the newest fighter jet, the Air Force’s F-22.

Ted Ytsma, who led the paintless-airplane efforts at Boeing, said existing fighters can accumulate up to 800 pounds of paint through painting, stripping and repainting, limiting range and fuel economy.

Painting also requires a separate paint hangar, while applique work can be done during regularly scheduled maintenance.