Aircraft Wrap Completed. Photos.
 

After flying a bare aluminum RV-8 for almost two years, I finally got around to finishing it by having my airplane completely vinyl wrapped by AircraftWraps. As you can see by the photos, the results are amazing. For anyone who is "on the fence" trying to make a decision about wrapping versus painting, hopefully this little review will give some details to help with your decision.

Planning. I spent over 6 months working with Craig at Scheme Designers to come up with a detailed plan. He did a great job of taking my inputs, detailed P-51 Mustang photos, and other ideas and adapting them to the RV-8. My goal was to be as historically accurate as possible to a 352nd Fighter Group "Blue Nosed B@stards of Bodney" P-51D. Colors, dimensions, measurements and placards are all as accurate as we could make them while fitting onto the RV-8 shape. Some placards are excluded simply to avoid looking too cluttered. I did indulge in some non-historical creative license with the name "Lady Katie", actual Vans Aircraft serial number on the tail, and personally significant dates under the five Balkenkreuz kill crosses. One note on the blue color. It is very difficult to find the accurate 352nd Fighter Group blue. Luckily I discovered that the P-51D "Little Rebel" had the actual paint code matched from a paint sample from inside the still standing Bodney Field latrine where extra blue paint was used on the walls of the toilets. Scott from AircraftWraps and I matched that color very closely by holding vinyl samples next to the P-51 paint in daylight until the naked eye could not see a difference. As a result, what you see here is historically accurate.

Decision. I was originally going to paint my airplane. I found several reputable paint shops and got quotes from each. Then when Scott introduced AircraftWraps here on VAF, I was one of the first to contact him to learn about his materials and process. I was very impressed with his description of the material quality, durability, weight savings, cost savings, time savings, and infinite possibilities for applying detail and imagination without the limitations of paint. The decision was for me a "no brainer". My cost to wrap was about 2/3 of the average paint quote. I also saved approximately 20 pounds compared to the weight of paint!

Process. Three days from start to finish. That's right. That's all the time it took for a crew of 4 guys to complete the job. I should note that this is a complete covering vinyl wrap. Every inch from tip to tail is covered in silver and blue vinyl. After watching the AircraftWraps crew working on my plane, my conclusion is that these people are a bunch of Type A, detail oriented uber-craftsmen who love airplanes. They are definitely not just run-of-the-mill vinyl wrappers like you'd find at an automotive vinyl shop. They put seams in aesthetically thoughtful and aerodynamically smart locations, and they have the ability to make the vinyl look great around tough shapes like intakes and the spinner. This is the reason Red Bull and others are knocking on their door now. When my finished airplane was delivered, Scott personally showed me the masterpiece and taught me how to care for a wrap--just 50/50 water and rubbing alcohol in a squirt bottle wiped on with a microfiber cloth to slide the bugs right off the surface. No need to ever wax or polish. Simple and quick.

Results. AircraftWraps far exceeded my expectations. The airplane matches the scheme on paper exactly to the milimeter. Whatever you can dream up on paper, these guys can faithfully and precisely match on an airplane. It's really pretty amazing how this new technology can take complex and detailed plans and cost-effectively bring them to life. My favorite example of this is the exhaust stacks on my airplane. I asked Scott if they could make them look realistic and 3-dimensional. He said "yeah, we can do that" and boy, was he right! I would have paid hundreds of dollars to have an artist airbrush these exhaust stacks, but with vinyl it's as simple as printing and applying. Finally, there's the reduced drag from the way vinyl covers rivets and imperfections. I have not yet precisely measured the airspeed increase from parasite drag reduction, but yesterday I did have a "wow" moment when I pushed all the levers forward and sustained 189 kias in level flight at 2500 MSL on a hot Arizona day with full fuel tanks and 30 pounds of luggage in the back. I hadn't seen that before, that's for sure. Maybe I need to take this thing to Reno next year...

Photos. So now for the important part of this post, the photos!











...and the final picture, my wife got to be the first passenger on a lunch date to Chandler Municipal Airport today. It's great to finally be flying in a "finished" airplane!

Wow Gash?way cool?just beautiful!

Nice job Scott and Co!

Gash, what's the history on the scheme?bet it's cool!

Early Christmas present?H0, H0 (H0)! ;)

Well done brudda!

Cheers,
Bob

What was the prep? Is there a seam on your spinner or wheel pant nose?

BEE-yootiful!

Nasty, the 352nd Fighter Group was the highest scoring fighter group in the European Theater. The group consisted of three squadrons, the 487th, 328th and 486th Fighter Squadrons. This scheme is from the 487th Fighter Squadron which had blue tails.

The 352nd's aircraft markings followed VIII Fighter Command convention. Both sides of the fuselage behind the cockpit were painted with the national insignia. A two-letter squadron identifier was painted in front of it. The 487th Fighter Squadron's designation was "HO," whereas the 328th's was "PE" and the 486th's was "PZ". I also feel some attachment to "HO" since this was on our jets at Holloman Air Force Base when I was stationed there.

The letter on the P-51 tail was normally the first letter of the last name of the pilot. For instance, George Preddy's aircraft (the top Mustang ace of WWII) had a "P" on the tail. The "G" on the tail of my airplane is the first letter of my last name, in keeping with the historical aircraft marking convention.

There was no "Lady Katie" in the real 487th FS. I decided to name my airplane after my youngest daughter. That was one of the departures from historical accuracy that I allowed myself, since it is my airplane after all. :)

Bill, the prep was pretty basic. The fiberglass parts need to be as finished as you can get them. It's not like a paint shop where they'll do some glass work before painting. You'll need to have all that done before you give it to AircraftWraps. The vinyl fits very tightly to the surface, so if you can see fiberglass weave now, you'll still see it after the wrap is done. I spent lots of time/money on getting this right before turning it over to be wrapped, and I'm glad I did. It looks perfect.

As far as metal prep goes, all they do is scrub it clean. There's no priming or any other surface application needed prior to wrapping. I gave Scott and the guys a clean airplane, so hopefully they didn't have to redo too much in that department.

The area on the leading edge of the wings where the tanks meet the outboard skin has a small gap that needs to be filled in. Scott filled those with bondo, or equivalent (I didn't see exactly what he used), and then sanded it smooth. This avoids having the vinyl bridge a gap that could be damaged by air loads. Side note: would an automotive vinyl shop think of something like this? Nope.

The seams are mostly hidden or at the trailing edges wherever possible. One area that you do see a seam is on the spinner and on the wheel pants. That's unavoidable, but you can't see it until you're standing close, and it doesn't bother me at all.

The only thing that was a pain was removing my belly antennas. Since AircraftWraps believes in doing large one-piece sections, they do not want to cut holes around antennas, as that would disrupt the look and create unnecessarily large openings. I therefore had the pleasure of pulling my seats and cockpit floor panels so that I could remove two comm antennas, and the transponder and ADS-B blade antennas. It wasn't fun drilling out a bunch of rivets, but hey, it was for a good cause! The underside of the airplane looks perfect, so it was worth the effort.

N number?
 

Beautiful design. Nicely done. The vinyl exhausts look real. How are you addressing the N number requirements?

Thanks David. I forgot to mention that the N numbers are there, I just photoshop'ed them out of these pictures due to my personal penchant for internet privacy. Of course, when I park at airshows, etc. all the plane spotters will add me to their international databases, but there's nothing I can do about that. :rolleyes: See this recent thread on the topic.

what a beautiful plane. I've used Craig twice on 2 different planes and he really is wonderful at bringing your imagination to life. Absolutely beautiful !

Thats---a great job!
Tom