CANADA’S CF-18 DEMO JET MILITARY
http://www.airinternational.com | 89Jeff Chester said: “It was always Jim’s
job to do that, but he recently retired. The
public affairs department here at 1 CAD was
looking for someone to fill Jim’s spot. Major
Jen Jones attended one of my art shows
last summer and thought I might be able to
fill the spot. When Jen asked me to do it,
my initial thought was how far outside my
lane of expertise the job would be: I’m an oil
painter usually doing figurative work and still
life, whereas this job is more like painting a
gigantic sculpture, so very new for me.
“Luckily, we encouraged Jim to come back
as a consultant, so he was instrumental in
helping me develop my design and advising
me of all the places on the aeroplane that
cannot be painted, so the final design would
make sense from a practical perspective.”Canada’s stylish demo jet
Jeff explained how he started by using
pencil and paper to come up with designs
based on his ideas, working through 60
iterations using computer design software
before a final shortlist was reached: a fairly
simple process, but one that took a lot of
effort to achieve.
The final design was then turned into
vector drawings comprising points and lines
that can be scaled up to fit the aircraft’s size
using computer illustration software. Once
the drawings were received by Jim and a
team of eight painters assigned to 1 Aircraft
Maintenance Squadron at Cold Lake, they
were enlarged and printed into stencils for
application to the aircraft.Design
This year’s design commemorates the 60th
anniversary of the North American Aerospace
Defense Command (NORAD), a bi-national
organisation between Canada and the United
States, tasked with aerospace warning and
aerospace control for North America.
Red, white and a striking dark blue were
chosen to signify the colours of the Canadian
and US flags. The globe motif applied to the
horizontal stabilisers represents the over-
watch of North American airspace provided
by NORAD. Two white lightning bolts extend
from the leading-edge extensions all the way
back to the tails are a replication of those in
the NORAD emblem.
Outer sides of the rudders feature a sword
painted over the strip lights, which glow to
give an illuminated sabre effect during twilight
shows. Half a maple leaf appears on the left
side of the sword and half a star on the right
side, used to signify the Canadian-American
NORAD partnership; the inner sides also
feature an arrangement of maple leaves and
stars. The title ‘NORAD’ features on the tip of
the vertical stabilisers.The flaps display the same legend in English
and French: ‘We have the watch’ on the left
and ‘Nous Montons La Garde’ on the right.
Explaining the thought processes behind
the design, Jeff said: “For the top of the wing,
I initially chose wings of the ptarmigan bird
to symbolise the importance of the Arctic to
the NORAD mission. They were full-on bird
wings, which then morphed into the ribbon
design which retained the wing-like look and
at the same time also referred to the shape
of the Northern Lights and a sweep across
a radar screen [recognition of the different
controllers, despatchers, weapon controllers
and a multitude of personnel involved with
monitoring the airspace]. The actual design
is a combination of the three elements. The
ribbons contain coloured fingers symbolising
feathers tying the design back in to the white
wings hugging the globe on the NORAD logo.
Jeff continued: “The white stripe extending
around the cockpit to the aft of the aircraft
follows the fuselage form, while the two
lightning bolts bow outward to avoid the Lex
fences, so the shape of the aeroplane has an
impact on the design itself.”
The actual painting process took just over
two months to complete, dovetailed into
a busy shop schedule and the ops tempo
of 4 Wing. The first two weeks were the
preparation, masking and sanding phase to
remove the old paint to the substrate, then
another week applying the underside paint
and standard stencils. Air component and
structures technicians worked exclusively
with high-solids polyurethane, a two-part
paint formulated for military specification. The
paint spray method uses reduced air pressure,
but with higher volume, and thicker paint
with less thinners, which helps to eliminate
much of the overspray. Deviation from the
normal camouflage scheme began after the
base underside grey was applied, and theThis shot shows how
deceptive the Hornet’s
mould line is, especially
with a fake canopy
painted on the underside.