03/19 E AIRBRUSH STEP BY STEP 47Christian Erhart | INTERVIEW
What exactly do you do in the Austrian Armed Forces?
Christian: I am a military aircraft engineer, who works on
the Eurofighter Typhoon as part of the flight line.
How long have you been airbrushing and how did you dis-
cover the world of airbrushing?
Christian: I liked to draw a lot when I was a kid. At some
point, I found myself being quite interested in airbrush art.
During my education, I put a good chunk of my hard-earned
money at the time towards an Evolution airbrush, compres-
sor, and paints. I picked up the basics by watching videos at
YouTube and I pretty much taught myself the rest, thus
learning by doing! In the course of time, my ability to use
the airbrush got better and better, and the quality of my
projects also got better. My motivation only grew with that
and I wanted to achieve even more.
You sent us pictures of the Saab 105OE ”Black Tiger“ and
the Alouette III ”Black Beauty“: Are they a normal part of
the Armed Forces fleet, which will also be made use of in
times of crisis or are they basically just for training or use
as ”show flyers“? What are the two machines usually used
for?
Christian: Both are naturally show flyers to a certain degree,
which have both been part of an international airshow or
exercise here and there. But first and foremost, they are
full-service machines and are made use of their intended
military purpose. The Saab 105OE is used by the jet training
squadron, known as “Tiger Squadron“, both as an educa-
tional training airplane and an airspace monitoring plane.
The Alouette III is an all-purpose helicopter and is used as a
training unit helicopter as well as for rescue missions, most
especially in alpine territory.How did you and the others decide on these motifs? Was
there a specific reason for them receiving the paintings
they did?Christian: The foundational motifs were provided by the
squadrons themselves. For the Tiger Squadron, the motif
was a tiger while for the multi-purpose helicopter squad-
ron, it was the local mountain ”Grimming“ and the 50th an-
niversary. The design sketches were my own and I discussed
the details with the pilots and technicians before getting to
work. They all showed a lot of trust in my ability to create
the type of work they were expecting and also came to de-
pend on me completely with respect to the designs. The 105
resulted from the “Tiger Fly In“ at the Airpower 2016 show
as well as the NATO Tiger meet-ups. For the Alouette III, we
had the ”50 Years of AL III in the Armed Forces“ anniversa-
ry.