RCAF aircraft marking stencils

[BLR]

Hi Paul,

Looks great! We’ll have to make you an honorary Canadian for a day..eh! Your planned 3 or 4 ship Oshkosh arrival sounds fantastic, one of the best formation fly-bys I’ve ever seen was a 4 ship flight at Comox!

BTW, the "Schooner 50" looks pretty good too!

Thanks for the pics/update.

Brian

[spookythecat]

August,

I'm looking forward to seeing lots of smiles on the faces of my Canadian friends when they see the new-old markings on my airplane. One of the jet warbird flightline volunteers at Oshkosh every year is a former RCAF WSO/EWO who has a lot of flight time in T-Birds so it'll be fun to see his reaction. I appreciate the nice thoughts and am pleased it will be pleasing to my Canuck friends. My buds that are the new T-Bird owners I wrote about in Warbird Digest are planning to leave their T-33s 133599 and 133610 in the original solid grey paint and reapply the Canadian FIP markings same as I did. We hope to have a three-ship arrival at Oshkosh with these three jets and perhaps a fourth. Should be a nifty little Canadian invasion from the air!

Thanks Peter! Besides the historical accuracy and tribute to the Canadian Air Force legacy, I really like the way it looks!

Another thing to get excited about at Oshkosh. Can't wait to see 'em!

[T33driver]

That will be awesome if they reapply the markings or better yet, carefully sand through and then reapply the markings for originality? Dunno if that is possible. I tip my hat tyou and your friends for saving these aircraft from the scrappie.

Peter,

It wouldn't have been possible to merely sand through the paint to the original markings. Canadian maintenance guys sanded off the original markings then painted over those areas. It was a bit of a task to match the aircraft paint, repaint over the sanded areas and eliminate the shadowing that resulted from the sanding, but I think it cleaned up nicely. By the way, I ferried 133610 to Rockford on Tuesday and it's licensing/airworthiness inspection is underway. 133599's inspection is complete and it's waiting on fuel nozzles to come back from their cleaning at Aero Turbine in Stockton CA so the engine and tail can be reinstalled and the FAA called in to sign off it's airworthiness. No major squawks on 133599. I expect to fly it to my airport here in Waukesha WI in the next few weeks and my bud is already promising beer bribes to do his Canadian FIP markings. Sounds fair to me since my beer inventory is a little thin right now.

[Michel C-GNCJ]

So then I guess that was you in Oshkosh in 2004:


Great job on the new markings. Yes ! We do appreciate a lot !!!

[T33driver]

Yes sir that was me. I was contractually obligated not to not reapply the FIP markings after I acquired it from Crown Assets in late 2002. Last summer another T-33 owner received a letter from Canadian Forces Lieutenant General J.S. Lucas from the office of Chief of the Air Staff officially approving his request to reapply FIP markings to his aircraft. The general was very appreciative that the former CF aircraft's heritage would be preserved and the service of the guys that flew and maintained them honored. It'd be fun to send him a photo of our three CF marked T-Birds at Oshkosh this year.

[JDK]

Yes sir that was me. I was contractually obligated not to not reapply the FIP markings after I acquired it from Crown Assets in late 2002. Last summer another T-33 owner received a letter from Canadian Forces Lieutenant General J.S. Lucas from the office of Chief of the Air Staff officially approving his request to reapply FIP markings to his aircraft. The general was very appreciative that the former CF aircraft's heritage would be preserved and the service of the guys that flew and maintained them honored. It'd be fun to send him a photo of our three CF marked T-Birds at Oshkosh this year.

That's a great and enlightened move by the Canadian Forces. If I understand correctly, they contacted that owner to say it was OK to do? Had he requested permission, or was this out of the blue?

Great to see another warbird getting into the full warpaint, and good to think that WIX may have helped a little too, and thanks for fronting up with the request and story so we can see it here too.

The 'markings police' get (understandably) a bad press, but it's great to see how co-operation can achieve a great authentic result.

Regards,

[T33driver]

Yes sir that was me. I was contractually obligated not to not reapply the FIP markings after I acquired it from Crown Assets in late 2002. Last summer another T-33 owner received a letter from Canadian Forces Lieutenant General J.S. Lucas from the office of Chief of the Air Staff officially approving his request to reapply FIP markings to his aircraft. The general was very appreciative that the former CF aircraft's heritage would be preserved and the service of the guys that flew and maintained them honored. It'd be fun to send him a photo of our three CF marked T-Birds at Oshkosh this year.

That's a great and enlightened move by the Canadian Forces. If I understand correctly, they contacted that owner to say it was OK to do? Had he requested permission, or was this out of the blue?

Great to see another warbird getting into the full warpaint, and good to think that WIX may have helped a little too, and thanks for fronting up with the request and story so we can see it here too.

The 'markings police' get (understandably) a bad press, but it's great to see how co-operation can achieve a great authentic result.

Regards,

James,

The owner made the request to highest echelon of the Canadian Air Force. Being a retired officer, my instinct was to seek out and find the proper chain of command and not go over anyone's head, but I'm glad the other owner just went straight to the top--the Chief of the Air Staff. Earlier in this thread, a WIXer did help me find a history expert on Canadian AF markings who provided design/templates and a contact in the printing/graphics business for the actual fabrication of the marking application materials. He is William "Bill" Burns at CanMilair Decals who designs, fabricates and sells model airplane decals but also helped an author with research for books he wrote on Canadian military aircraft markings.

http://canmilair.com/books.htm

[T33driver]

Well, one last detail added to former RCAF T-33 133579. As a result of some great vectors from WIXers gregv and spookythecat, I made the aquaintence of Bill Burns at CanMilAir decals and author/RCAF historian/photographer Pat Martin. They have been a huge resource and I've since learned a lot about Canadian AF markings, history and specifically my airplane's service record. I found out it was assigned to 439 Squadron in the latter part of it's service. The 439 Squadron symbol/mascot is the"fang" (sabre-toothed tiger). Mr. Martin was kind enough to sell me photo enlargements from his personal photo collection which included some of my airplane carrying the 439 Sq "fang" markings on the tail in it's current paint scheme. Seeing this, I just had to add the squadron insignia. CanMilAir designed and made me stencils and here's a few pics of the application process. Since WIXer Henning just bought a new piece of photographic artillery in that fancy Nikon D300, I'll coax him over on a nice day for some outdoor shots. In the meantime, forgive me for the less than professional pics in the hangar:

Here's the stencil applied and tail feathers masked off...kind of ghetto, like seeing sausage being made, but it worked. Yes, I'm gonna keep my day jobs, thanks for asking.

[img][img]http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l187/kep130/P1000392.jpg[/img]


Here I am beginning the painting...hope this turns out!!


[/img]


Leaning back on the ladder with my front foot juuuust barely putting weight on the tail feathers for balance. Whoa, that's a reach, good thing I had yoga class that morning. Don't laugh, a lot of hot chicks are in that class.

[img][img]http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l187/kep130/P1000400.jpg[/img]


Risking life and limb to paint a cool squadron insignia...my risk mgmt analysis concluded it a reasonable level of risk for a worthwhile endeavor.

[/img]


Ahhh the money shot...peeling the stencil off to reveal the results...

[img][img]http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l187/kep130/P1000404.jpg[/img]


The final result. Much to my relief, it turned out great and the insignia is positioned just as it was in historical photos! Cool!

[/img]

[Beachy]

Looks great, Paul! Good job!

[T33driver]

Thanks Kirsten! I'm surprised nobody commented on my t-shirt.

[gregv]

Right on!

looking excellent, great to see original markings being reapplied, especially after the lengths you've gone to to get 'em right.

I like the polished tip tank tip as well, nice touch.

Can't wait to see more.

cheers!

greg v.

[needle]

Paul,

Nice job, and so nice to see an aircraft accurately "returned" to its National markings.

Just as a side question, and it may have been addressed on a thread somewhere else in the great wide world of WIX, (and I'm too lazy to go and search for it!), but what is the "logo" on the hanger floor under the tail, and does it have relevence to your aircraft/career?

Julian

[peter]

Paul
It was great to see you flying an ex RCAF T 33 and to see it in its original finish as well!! Now you go and make it even more excellent by your hard work and research into the correct markings! I think youv'e done an awesome job and look forward to seeing pics of her outside!
Well done!!

[Michel C-GNCJ]

Whoaaa, awsome work on the tail !

[spookythecat]

Fantastic! I was gonna build my model as The Red Knight but I may have just changed my mind.