Aircraft livery restrictions?

[JB434]

Following this news article
http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyI...

This section to be specific

PH news article said:

Brabus will even let customers design their jet's paint job - though the company does warn that exterior modifications can be tricky due to the strict regulations about the livery on aircraft.

I'm curious, what exactly are the restrictions on the liveries which can be applied to aircraft?

[eharding]

Some are structural - composite wings are temperature sensitive, and in some cases you need to be careful about painting areas in dark colours. The other reason may be that they tend to get shirty about disruptive colour schemes which would mask the visibility of registration marks (there was a dodgy photo-your-house outfit that was notorious for this, I recall)

[Eric Mc]

Thee are legal requirements about registration markings. Some countries (such as Austria and Switzerland) insist that the tail fin of the aircraft must show the national flag markings in quite a large format.

[z4chris99]

leading edge of Wings usually leave alone, there are a few others but it's pretty free range other than that

some guy has an all black jet, can't remember who

[hurstg01]

z4chris99 said:

leading edge of Wings usually leave alone, there are a few others but it's pretty free range other than that

some guy has an all black jet, can't remember who

Donald Trump [or is it Hugh Heffner?....]

[z4chris99]

oh and I don't think you can do the rudder flap thing either, haven't worked in jets since 2009 bit rusty

[Eric Mc]

It used to be Hugh Hefner - The Black Bunny -



The US Navy liked the idea so they copied it -

[z4chris99]

I was thinking of EI-VIV

[Eric Mc]

An Irish Piper PA-34 was registered EI-EIO

[z4chris99]

why don't alot of the private guys use VP-???

excuse my ignorance

[Newc]

z4chris99 said:

some guy has an all black jet, can't remember who

Half black A320s in Japan

[vtgts300kw]

[Eric Mc]

z4chris99 said:

why don't alot of the private guys use VP-???

excuse my ignorance

The prefix letters of civil registrations denotes the country in which the aircraft is registered.
If you look down the table linked to below you will see that aircraft with VP as their prefix are registered in a number of countries or territories that are current or former British colonies.
Not all aircraft owners will want to register their aircraft in such locations and they may even be blocked from doing so by their own national civil aircraft registration regulations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_registration

[Hugo a Gogo]

Eric Mc said:

An Irish Piper PA-34 was registered EI-EIO

Please tell me it was owned by a farmer called McDonald

[Eric Mc]

That would be good.

[JB434]

Thanks for the replies, I thought from the way the article was worded that there were much tighter regulations dictating how aircraft could be decorated.

[Eric Mc]

In recent years (i.e. the last 20) painting and decalling techniques have improved massively and these allow some very adventurous colours - especially on airliners.

Although now defunct, Western Pacific airlines had very interesting schemes.

[HoHoHo]

Eric Mc said:

In recent years (i.e. the last 20) painting and decalling techniques have improved massively and these allow some very adventurous colours - especially on airliners.

Although now defunct, Western Pacific airlines had very interesting schemes.

Most of the very nice detailed designs are wrapped much as a car can be.

We've done a few light aircraft over the years - main problem as Virgin once found out is that if it's not applied as it should be, 500mph winds and vinyl wrapping don't work well togther!

[Ginetta G15 Girl]

Eric Mc said:

The US Navy liked the idea so they copied it -

Not just the US Navy:

[Eric Mc]

Pity they didn't put a proper British bunny on the tail.

I'd go with this one -