Regarding the fading of the red Oratex…… Back a few years ago, a major supplier of paraglider Nylon brought out a fluoro range… paraglider pilots love(d) that sort of thing… but they found that some colours were very badly affected by UV compared with others and some of these fluoro colours were degrading within a season.
Paragliders are more critical because the fabric is so lightweight but back in the litigious 80s, a pair of US airline pilots parked a Quicksilver (?) in the open for some time and were killed when the fabric tore. The fabric supplier was successfully sued by their widows on the basis that airline pilots are not expected to know about UV degradation. I have also heard from fabric suppliers, that white is to be avoided compared with darker colours because the white requires more bleaching from the base greige cloth and that makes the fibres weaker. Water absorption makes many fabrics weaker too. And you get mould wicking into the fibres over time, especially in humid climates. All this means that the best idea is to put a full range of samples on your hangar roof and forget about them for 15 years while you sit inside and worry. Interesting topic though. D _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list [email protected] http://lists.base64.com.au/listinfo/aus-soaring
