"Sliker" wrote in message
...
I've got several buried antennas in my composite homebuilt. A com
antenna in the leading edge of the rudder, a VOR antenna in the outer
wing, and a com antenna along the side of the fuselage. One thing
occured to me was that if I paint my plane with a metallic paint,
would the metallic particles in the paint block radio reception?
I know the folks at the old Stoddard-Hamilton said after they built
the NASA funded, lightning protected Glasair 3, they had to move all
the antennas outside. And they also said they couldn't believe how
much better all the radios worked than before using buried antennas in
their original factory G-III. They also said the external antennas
cost them 10 knots in speed. Not insignificant. So even in an airplane
that's all composite, apparently buried antenna's aren't ideal. And
now I worry if I use metallic paint, things might get worse. I'm just
so sick of white airplanes, I'm not going that route. Maybe a light
gray instead of metallic silver as planned, hmm..........

For the last 25 years or so, a lot of paint that looks metalic is not and a
lot of paint that looks non metalic is--and I am actually wrong to even call
most of it paint. Most metal-flake is/was mylar and white paint is titanium
dioxide--which is why "white covers black or your money back".

In any case, I have been away from that sort of thing too long and don't
even know whether you may need a "radome coating"; but any good aircraft
paint shop or aircraft paint distributor should know and a lot of avionics
shops that work on major retrofits should know as well.

Best of luck, and please let us all know what you find out.

Peter