Navy Rearchers find that common polymer can self heal aircraft bullet wounds.

Recently, US scientists discovered that a commercially sold polymer - used to coat bowling pins, helmets, and golf balls - displays a curious property when shot at: it can immediately "pave over" the bullet holes.
www.newscientist.com...

Well this will improve our aircrafts capabilities quiet a large amount when all the resarch is done and it can be implemented. At the moment the material melts on contact with fuel. They can fix solve that problem appartently though.

Our planes are rarely hit by enemy fire anyways because most countries we fight don't even have air support. But the major impact this is gonna have is on weight. It takes a lot less of this to prevent a disaster such as a major fuel leak. The old material had to be layred and and was very heavy.

That could lighten the loads of current military aircraft which use a heavy system in which bullets must pierce several different layers of material around a fuel tank. When pierced, rubber in one of the layers swells to plug up the bullet hole.

Too bad it only works when it's shot or it could be very usefull in alot more areas.

[edit on 24-8-2004 by Hoppinmad1]

Seems to me that this would be ideal for helo's, since they are usually the ones taking gun fire. I would say once perfected, survivability will improve greatly for Apache's Black Hawks, ect ect ect

Didn't think of that. Seems to just be an extra safety measure for jets but would be a major lifesaver when it comes to helecopters. They like you said are always taking small arms fire it seems.