October 2008

Although the airshow season has drawn to a close, activity in the warbird world never ceases, in fact the winter months herald a period of intense activity as aircraft are refurbished and undertake annual maintenance.  Our long term involevement with several aircraft continues and this month saw good progress on two of them. Hawker Hurricane IIB, in the final stages of re-build with Suffolk based Hawker Restorations Ltd (HRL) received an application of authentic RAF colours to represent BE505 of 174 Squadron, based at manston in early 1942. Our role was to supply detailed scheme specifications on behalf of the owner and to work with HRL to develop highly authentic stencils based on the original manufacturers drawings. This extended to reproducing the exact appearance of the Hawker applied W/T earth bonding logo for that period. Our final job on this project will be the application of the distinctive Kangeroo nose artwork and 'Pegs' name. See www.hangar11.co.uk for the latest photos of this superb project.

At North Weald, P-51D 'Jumpin-Jacques' is receiving some paint attention inside her engine bay. Perhaps not the most often seen or glamorous aspect of the job but beauty has to go further than just skin deep! We will post up some photos shortly.

August 2008

This month we travelled to Goderich, Ontario in Canada to once again work with our friends at Sky Harbour Aircraft.  This time the project was to apply detailed stencils and nose art to the Fighter Factory B-25J Mitchell. Having previously worked remotely with the owner and Sky Harbour to determine the scheme details and paint specifications it was good to get ‘hands on’ with the aircraft at last. We spent a week on the project, working around ten to twelve hours per day. The wonderful ‘Sheena of the Jungle’ nose art was applied by my colleague Alec Kinane who worked in to the night on our last evening to get her finished. The highlight of our week was the trip back to the US in ‘Wild Cargo’, a wonderful end to a hard week, but well worth it. 

The following pictures were taken by Rich Kolasa after ‘Wild Cargo’ arrived at her new home, The Military Aircraft Museum, Virginia Beach, VA. Many thanks to Rich for allowing us to use his work.