Absolutely no difference. Only a handful of near-modern planes (a-10) have any real armor protecting the plane itself. Pilots often sit in metal tubs, but the overall plane is unprotected from anything physical beyond bird strikes. Any protection is incidental to the structural requirements.
There might be something to say for a metal with a higher melting/yield temp that could survive longer in a fire but I don't think that enters into the design equation.
They would have built it from titanium but at titanium welding hadn't been figured out too well then. The Alfa sub hulls were done with plutonium rods if I remember right!
As I /really/ don't want to search those terms in order to confirm it... I'm just going to point out that it seems like meatysnapper is saying:
Alfa sub hulls were done (, welded using,) plutonium (welding) rods; according to their memory. Not, as another reply speculates, made out of plutonium rods (which sounds silly from all sorts of perspectives).
Comments
Is a steel plane harder to shoot down than an aluminum plane?
Or it makes no difference because the fuselage has to be thin?
Absolutely no difference. Only a handful of near-modern planes (a-10) have any real armor protecting the plane itself. Pilots often sit in metal tubs, but the overall plane is unprotected from anything physical beyond bird strikes. Any protection is incidental to the structural requirements.
There might be something to say for a metal with a higher melting/yield temp that could survive longer in a fire but I don't think that enters into the design equation.
They would have built it from titanium but at titanium welding hadn't been figured out too well then. The Alfa sub hulls were done with plutonium rods if I remember right!
As I /really/ don't want to search those terms in order to confirm it... I'm just going to point out that it seems like meatysnapper is saying:
Alfa sub hulls were done (, welded using,) plutonium (welding) rods; according to their memory. Not, as another reply speculates, made out of plutonium rods (which sounds silly from all sorts of perspectives).
Plutonium? Apparently weight is not an issue.