Airbrush Step by Step – July 2019

INTERVIEW | Christian Erhart

48 AIRBRUSH STEP BY STEP 03/19 E

Where do you paint the planes and how long does that

last?

Christian: Both aircrafts were painted and varnished in a

hangar at the respective sites. The technicians did a super

job preparing them for me. That is, the cockpit, entries and

exits, antennas, etc. had been taped up, primed, and paint-

ed in the base color. That saved me a whole lot of time. The

Saab took me over 80 hours in just 5 days for a partial coat

and airbrush works. Thanks to some wonderful support

from the technicians and servicemen, it actually ended up

being possible to make the deadline. For the AL III, I ended

up requiring roughly a good 60 hours for the design.

What guidelines are there for painting airplanes and heli-

copters with respect to flight security?

Christian: To begin, everything has to be approved by the

bosses. When the project is approved of, a set of technical

instructions are established, which detail how everything is

to be run. This will i.e. include work procedures, a list of ap-

proved materials, etc. And this has to be followed to a T!

Once the entire painting job is complete, the aircraft will be

checked and worked on by the technicians, who will make it

ready for use. Since these are all specialists, the flight secu-

rity and ability is guaranteed as well. The aircraft is then

tested for flight functionality. Once everything has been

tested and determined ready for flight use, the aircraft is

released for its daily flight operations.

From an artistic viewpoint, what are some of the things

you have to keep an eye on when painting helicopters and

airplanes?

Christian: On whole, the concept needs to be coherent to

the airframe. What’s also important – and something I feel

can be a bit of a challenge – is that the design of the air-

craft seen on the ground and most of all, in the air, needs to

yield some nice visual optics. When I’m tracing a design on-

to the aircraft, at least when this has been possible, I would

use a projector. When positioning the motif, you need to be

a bit flexible due to various extensions and openings. The

rest came in the course of work and was surely also a matter

of judgement. The only paint that could be used was the

kind permitted by regulations, which didn’t cause me any

problems from an artistic standpoint.

What materials have you used?

Christian: The paints I’ve used are 2K lacquers that could,

according to the technical instructions, be used for such en-

deavors. Materials that could in any way influence the flight

security don’t come into question! To ensure that you’re not

only protecting your paint work, but also minimizing the

48