Any one have contacts in USN who paint planes?

Just wondering if there are any active or inactive USN peeps who have contacts with people who actually spray USN birds.

I wonder if they'd be up for a kind of Reddit style AMA (Ask me anything) as I have a bunch of questions of how they design, paint and maintain the livery of USN carrier based planes.

While in the Marines I went to USN paint school, and designed a few paint schemes for the F/A-18 between 2010 and 2014 that are still in use today.

You can get alot of information on paint schemes for the 18 by googling MIL-STD-2161C and if you can get your hands on the A1-F18AC-SRM-500.

But I would be more than happy to give you any information I have.

Great information!

Residual....hello! And thanks for the reply. I have a laundry list of questions, some of which satisfy my curiosity but some of which I hope to apply to livery in the game.

I guess some initial questions would be:

1. How do you source the fonts for some of the liveries? Other than the std USN angled font (that we can source), what are the names of fonts used for specialised type on fuel tanks and spine? (The sidewinders have a kind of Asian spliced letter for "NF"...where is that from?)

2. Is there a kind of style guide used by livery creators that the Navy issues or is it "anything goes"?

3. Who designs the livery of say, a CAG bird...does the CAG do it with a painter, or the painter proposes, or someone in the unit draws it up? What kind of process happens from paper design to real paint on the bird? Is there a lot of trial and error? Experimentation?

4. The std paint used for line birds. I notice it generally matte. Is it hard wearing? Is there anything special about the paint in general? How many washes will it handle before a repaint is needed?

5. For CAG birds with glossy paint...is there anything especially different about that kind of paint? Is less hard-wearing? Does the CAG bird get maintained more often to keep the paint job looking good or does it have the same rotation as a line bird in terms of repainting?

6. Is everything effectively "stencil" painted on the plane or there is also hand painted stuff?

7. I notice there is quite a lot of font variation between carrier names between units. Sometime they are serif fonts that describe the carrier, other times std us mil stencil or navy angled font.

8. Kind of related to the style guide question, is there a std list of fonts that are used by painters of aircraft?

9. How are stencils created? Using machinery on board the boat? Hand cut? Machined?

10. Approximately how long does it take to spray a CAG bird? Is there a lot of drying time between layers of colour?

11. Are any digital tools like Photoshop used in the creation of livery or stencils?

I know some of these seem oddly specific but I have always wondered how these thing are done in real life vs. the work we do in Photoshop to make these. Like I said, some questions are to satisfy my curiosity and hopefully some questions related to fonts will help make our designs crisper and more realistic.

Thanks in advance for any answers!

1. How do you source the fonts for some of the liveries? Other than the std USN angled font (that we can source), what are the names of fonts used for specialized type on fuel tanks and spine? (The sidewinders have a kind of Asian spliced letter for "NF"...where is that from?)

The standardized USN angled font as you describe is established in the MIL-STD I mentioned above. It goes into detail on how to set it up, what spacing to use, what angles etc, most of your line aircraft will use that, or some modified version of that, which is laid out by hand with tape, and then sprayed. Other fonts can be used, which I will get into shortly in one of your other questions.

2. Is there a kind of style guide used by livery creators that the Navy issues or is it "anything goes"?

Its more or less anything goes, within reason. The way it was done when I designed the CAG bird I did was I came up with a concept, and my OIC showed it to the squadron CO who approved it.

3. Who designs the livery of say, a CAG bird...does the CAG do it with a painter, or the painter proposes, or someone in the unit draws it up? What kind of process happens from paper design to real paint on the bird? Is there a lot of trial and error? Experimentation?

It depends on the unit, but sometimes CAG birds are designed as part of a contest, some are designed by the pilots, some by maintenance, and some have historical sentiments. Many of them are designed on paper, but when I was doing it, i literally used the F/A-18 that came with FSX acceleration and re-skinned it and took screenshots in 3D to use during the layout. At MCAS Beaufort we had a team of civilians who worked at the paint shop that were amazingly talented at spraying the designs.

4. The std paint used for line birds. I notice it generally matte. Is it hard wearing? Is there anything special about the paint in general? How many washes will it handle before a repaint is needed?

The paint used on the F/A-18 is very durable, and is actually fairly rough to the touch. It can last years before needing to be repainted. However the aircraft is washed every 7 days while on carrier ops, and 14 days during land ops. Beyond that there are corrosion inspections that are done every 7, 14, 24, 48 days and so on, which are covered in the recurrent inspection publications.

5. For CAG birds with glossy paint...is there anything especially different about that kind of paint? Is less hard-wearing? Does the CAG bird get maintained more often to keep the paint job looking good or does it have the same rotation as a line bird in terms of repainting?

All aircraft go through the same inspection / wash cycles, so yes cag birds are no different than line birds. The paint itself is just a MIL-STD aircraft grade paint.

6. Is everything effectively "stencil" painted on the plane or there is also hand painted stuff?

Just about everything is stencil painted, but there are areas of certain schemes that must be hand painted. It would be impossible to stencil paint colors that blend together. An example is the top and bottom of the aircraft are different colors. You can see especially near where the Navy / Marines text is near the 64 and 68 door where the colors are blended together almost like a football shape near that text.

7. I notice there is quite a lot of font variation between carrier names between units. Sometime they are serif fonts that describe the carrier, other times std us mil stencil or navy angled font.

Every unit, and every group do things slightly different. There are standards used for the most part, but everyone likes to have there own fingerprint so to speak.

8. Kind of related to the style guide question, is there a std list of fonts that are used by painters of aircraft?

The only actual standard listed is the one in the MIL-STD-2161C

9. How are stencils created? Using machinery on board the boat? Hand cut? Machined?

Many stencils are created by hand using a layout ruler, and tape. Believe it or not, this method is alot faster when dealing with numbers and standard text like the modex, buno, or branch markings. Some of the more advanced things use computer generated stencils which are cut onto vinyl stencils, placed on the aircraft, then painted. (This can very by location, but this is how we did it at MCAS Beaufort at the unit I was with)

10. Approximately how long does it take to spray a CAG bird? Is there a lot of drying time between layers of color?

Between colors you generally give a day, or more depending on the paint. It can take 3 - 4 weeks to paint a CAG bird given the sanding, prep, base, stenciling, and shooting everything else like colors, text ect.

11. Are any digital tools like Photoshop used in the creation of livery or stencils?

Absolutely. I used photoshop extensively for the CAG bird i designed. There are some other tools used specifically for the vinyl cutters which I honestly cant recall the name of.

This was awesome. Thanks so much. I might have some more soon. Hope you don’t mind if I ask more in the next couple of days.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hey Residual,

Under what circumstances would stencil font be used over the regular MIL-STD-2161C font.

The document cites both the non-broken and broken (stencil) type but are their any rules governing which to us when?

Or is there any informal practice around them?

Looking at pics of older hornets the JET INTAKE warning marking seem a lot closer to the intake but in the DCS model they are quite a distance from the intake. Any thoughts on that?

Regards,

Tigershark

Great information fella's. Loved reading it , Thanks Residual for answering the questions, and thanks TigersharkBAS for asking them.

Under what circumstances would stencil font be used over the regular MIL-STD-2161C font.

This is completely dependent on the unit, and the circumstances behind the stencil. For example if you are deployed and don't have access to a machine to cut a stencil, your more likely to mask numbering and lettering by hand. It also depends on who is doing the work. For instance the guys at NAS Jacksonville are civilians hired to do nothing but paint, and they mask by hand because they can actually mask it faster by hand rather than waiting on the cutter to cut stencils, then place them. On the other hand, a unit could just be looking to use a different font all together, which is fairly rare, but could happen.

The document cites both the non-broken and broken (stencil) type but are their any rules governing which to us when?

The broken stencil really is not used on aircraft. The only times I have ever used it, or seen it used is on equipment or cases. We had access to stencil kits for those uses, and never taped those freehand.

Looking at pics of older hornets the JET INTAKE warning marking seem a lot closer to the intake but in the DCS model they are quite a distance from the intake. Any thoughts on that?

The 2161 gives general information about markings for the F/A-18, but the A1-F18AC-SRM-500 lays out more detail on specific measurements for markings, and how they are to be placed. Generally they are closer toward the front of the intake starting roughly 2 inches aft of the lip of the intake.