paint schemes

[HansLab]

All,

I've been searching internet for some time now, only to find that the idea I had for my KF IV paint scheme could still be different - and be awsome, still.
Most of the photographs show the fuselage - one sees rarely wings with their paint-schemes
How did you guys make your scheme? What to choose, where to go? For this might be a once-in-a-lifetime thing: I want to do it as pretty as possible. But on the other hand: it has to be do-able: I haven't sprayed anything else but my wifes hair, so fancy curled schemes are no-go....
Where to start!?!

any help appreciated - as ever.

[Esser]

Although I haven't even received my kit yet, as soon as I ordered it I started working on schemes. I came out with about 10 of them. All i did was get the templates of the kitfox site and start drawing lines. Then I picked things I liked about certain schemes and incorporated them into one scheme. But it is very hard. I came up with this:
http://i1042.photobucket.com/albums/b423/joshesser/side4.jpg


I'm still undecided about my wings though. What I do know is that I have decided to spend the extra $$$ and I will get my plane professionally painted. I realize not everyone can do this but in my eyes if I just spent a year and $60,000 building a plane I want it to catch peoples eye on the ramp. The paint is what people will see and will judge how good your plane is by how it looks.

[t j]

I got my ideas on paint at a fly in. It just caught my eye and I knew right awy that i liked it.

ps keeping it simple was important to me.

[Dorsal]

I used the profile and wing plan with Microsoft Paint, the final was version 31.

[jiott]

Dorsal, I like yours! Its simple but as pretty as anything out there.

Jim

[Dorsal]

Thanks! I can do straight lines with the best of them :D

[Monocock]

Esser

I like the pattern of yours, a lot. I think it would be even nicer to spray navy blue where the red is, yellow in place of the black and grey with the grey.

Lovely

[Esser]

Thanks Monocock. The red is actually a dark orange and when I first started doing up schemes I wanted something black and yellow but some how ended up here. I still do love the factory O-233 model with the black and yellow. That is a sexy paint job. Feel free to copy this one if you ever want to make your blue and yellow version. I would be afraid though that the yellow might wash out against the white since the line is thin.

[Dorsal]

Esser, I agree with Mono, very cool pattern.

[Esser]

Thanks Dorsal, i just hope i can do the rounding at the top before the vert stab since the actual construction is more square than round there

[DesertFox4]

If you need to down load paint scheme templates here you go.

http://www.kitfoxaircraft.com/Paint%20Templates.htm

[chefwarthog]

You have a nice paint pattern for your project, the plane that you will bild, as to in some way, look like your soul.... I Like it when it is different, I wont reject any ideas.... still searching for the perfect paint job!

[War Eagle]

Color was an important issue for me. I knew I wanted yellow as it is one of the most easily seen colors for the human sight. I have been flying enough to recognize that it is easy to loose sight of some planes in flight and I wanted to provide as much advantage as I could to be seen while I was in flight. And heaven forbid, if I was ever go down, I wanted to also provide as much benefit to be seen on the ground as possible. So my logic said it had to be yellow. I also wanted to have a very patriotic theme associated with my plane and some how incorporate an eagle and flag into the color scheme. Everything had to work together and it had to be cool looking. All of this meant I somehow had to figure out how to make red, white, blue and yellow work together. It turned out to be no small task for me.

I looked on the web for color schemes, I looked at planes at Oshkosh, Sun-n-Fun and Arlington. I looked at planes in the magazines. I looked at hundreds of them trying to pick a design and color scheme that would look cool to me. I even consulted color consultants and marketing designers. I think I asked anybody that would listen.

I made dozens of water color painted drawings to help me better visualize how the scheme would look on my plane.

I wanted something I could color coordinate the interior with the colors chosen for the plane.

In hindsight, the color scheme was the single hardest decision for me. I literally worked on that part of the design for several years before I was able to make the final decision.

It was the culmination of a lot of little pieces over many years, but when it finally came together for I knew because of the colored drawing I made that allowed me to create the looked I wanted.

Here

[Eric]

You can also look in some model airplane catalog,some models have very nice schemes.
I like the scheme from the Piper Pa-18 supercub from Hegi

[HighWing]

One thought on paint on the wings. Don, an old timer in one of the earlier forums worked as an engineer on the group at Newport News that tried to think of every thing that could possibly go wrong on our Nuclear Submarines (when they go down, they are in worse Doo Doo than we are). Once on examining his Kitfox, by putting a light inside the wing in a darkened hangar, he could see a line of light shining through the pinked edge of the finish tapes. Apparently the finish tapes had shrunk since he placed them pulling the UV protection with them. He put thermocouples in the wing and checked for internal temperatures on a hot Summer day. He got internal temps near 250° and his wings were white.
Lowell

[Esser]

I dug up some of my old schemes so that people can look at them and take ideas. They are very rough. They might be a little more complex for a home paint job too. But here it they are.

http://i1042.photobucket.com/albums/b423/joshesser/2top.png
http://i1042.photobucket.com/albums/b423/joshesser/side.png
http://i1042.photobucket.com/albums/b423/joshesser/side3.png
http://i1042.photobucket.com/albums/b423/joshesser/side2.png
http://i1042.photobucket.com/albums/b423/joshesser/Side5.png
http://i1042.photobucket.com/albums/b423/joshesser/Side6.png
http://i1042.photobucket.com/albums/b423/joshesser/Side7.png
http://i1042.photobucket.com/albums/b423/joshesser/top5.jpg

[jiott]

I am thinking of basically a light grey or silver scheme with another bright contrasting color for visibility. The majority of the plane would be grey (similar to the Carbon Cub). I am thinking this would allow maybe one less coat of paint, saving weight and cost. Gey finish coat over the required grey UV coats would cover easily. Any thoughts on this idea?

Jim

[Paul Z]

I Like the first White, Orange & Black Scheme! I would try finding a different color than the Orange, it is pretty simple and nice looking

[HighWing]

When we were flying all over the Western US generally as a flight of six. One of the regulars had a silver (gray) Model IV with a blue sunburst.

After every departure the call was "Larry, turn on your blinkers". If he was more than a several hundred yards away, he became invisible unless you checked on him every minute or so.

The bright contrasting color is a must in our group's experiece. We had white with red, yellow with blue, and white with blue. The yellow was definitely the most visible.
Lowell

[DesertFox4]

No matter how many "that's a beautiful paint job" comments you receive at airshows and pancake breakfasts or awards from judges you win, your paint job never really reports for duty until you are airborne. Your wingmen will either silently praise your choices or cuss you out under their squelch breaking breath every time they take wing with you.
It's a little spooky when you go to change a waypoint or comm frequency and look back out for your wingman and he is nowhere to be found. Is he under me, over me, behind me? Does he see me? Did he head-on with another aircraft and I just didn't see the debris? Lots of goose bump questions race through your mind in a fraction of a second. Way faster than you can key the mike and ask " where'd you go?"

Our Kitfox's look about half the size of a 172 when airborne. Not a lot for the eye to lock on to when scanning for targets. Your paint scheme will either enhance your visibility or camouflage you.
I'm sure Search & Rescue wishes all aircraft were painted either international orange or yellow, but that would be boring.
If you choose an earth tone paint scheme or darker colors, please invest in the best anti-collision lighting you can find.
Of course that would be http://www.aeroleds.com/ ;)