Twenty-seven years ago, Craig Barnett, a pilot and civil engineer, launched Scheme Designers, a company that does something people may think is simple: designing aircraft paint schemes.
Many aircraft owners put their faith in the paint shop and a straightforward design with a simple base color and a few stripes. However, Barnett pointed out, âA lot of paint shops are not artistic, theyâre contractors. They build what theyâre told to build. But what you want and what you get are sometimes two things.â An aircraft owner might have a vision for what they want from their paint job, but, he added, âIf you donât give proper direction, you may get a fantastic outcome or their vision, their interpretation of whatever sketch youâve given.â
Just providing a photo of a paint design isnât sufficient, Barnett explained, because there is no guarantee the paint shop can replicate that accurately. âSome shops can,â he said, âbut you donât know until you pick up the airplane and then you donât have a leg to stand on.â
What Scheme Designers has done, he said, is âopened people's eyes to possibilities.â And that doesnât necessarily mean a complex design, but something that fits the aircraft, whether a light airplane, a helicopter, a business jet, or even an airliner. âPeople will have a design idea and see a [Jackson] Pollock painting and want splatters,â he said, âbut they canât understand how that will work. We take these dissimilar ideas people have and coagulate them into an idea that actually works on an aircraft and enhances the shape of an aircraft.â
Turning those ideas into a cohesive design isnât just a matter of coming up with pretty drawings, however. Scheme Designers creates the design, based on the owner's desires, but also provides detailed specifications to the paint shop for proper application, including the thickness of stripes and proper spacing between various elements. âItâs properly articulated in terms of renderings and dimensionally correct with detailed dimension drawings and written specifications and a layout to the eighth of an inch for the whole aircraft,â Barnett said. âWhen you walk out of the paint shop and leave the specifications there, that is your contract for how itâs going to look.â
Naturally, Barnett recommends that owners contact the designer well ahead of scheduling the paint job. For most owners, painting their aircraft is something that happens rarely. âCreating a paint scheme is a process,â Barnett explained. âYou want to take your time and think about it. Youâre spending so much to paint it, weâre inviting you to guarantee you get what your vision is. Itâs a very small investment.â
For customers who want more than a three-view rendering of what their airplane will look like, Scheme Designers has developed full-motion 3D photo-realistic renderings that show the paint scheme from any angle. The customer can play with different colors and view the rendering in various environmental conditions such as in the air, on the ground, and during the morning or evening. NBAA-BACE visitors can see the 3D rendering tool at the Scheme Designers booth (N2226).
As the designers behind many of the paint jobs seen on new and preowned aircraft (more than 16,500 airplanes and helicopters from a Vans RV-3 to a Boeing 747 during the past 27 years), Barnett and his team are uniquely suited to give advice on painting, and visitors might want to ask about trends in aircraft paint design and products. For example, while matte finishes are popular on cars, they easily attract grease and dirt, Barnett said, and are difficult to clean. "Fingerprints will ruin the look," he commented. "And especially with airplanes that create soot [turboprops and jets], it gives a surface thatâs easy for soot to grab onto.â
A better choice, if matte is desired, is a semi-matte clear coat because it doesnât pick up as much dirt and oil. But for cleanliness and ease of maintenance, gloss and semigloss are still the preferred coating.
Complex designs are also becoming less popular because they add considerable expense to the painting process. âIt can easily double the cost of a paint job,â Barnett said. He still prefers and recommends the Scheme Designers look. âWhat we brought to the industry was a flowing design approach that emulates airflow and speaks to speed," he noted. "Itâs still the most popular stylistic approach. And there are infinite ways to do that."