Recreating a classic

What came next was the painstaking recreation of the classic Cessna livery by Craig Barnett of Scheme Designers in Cresskill, New Jersey, who has helped design all but three AOPA sweepstakes aircraft schemes since 1999.

All Barnett had to go on was a photo of the 1958 magazine cover, which he said did not provide nearly enough detail.

“My research started out online looking at photos of 1958 Cessna 182As to see if I could find any in their original scheme,” Barnett said. “I collected a range of examples in what appeared to be original schemes. However, it became apparent that most were repainted aircraft and that there were, as a result, many variations from one example to another.”

Next, Barnett sought out examples of the original brochure for the aircraft. This turned up several photos of the brochure online, which allowed him to glean more detail regarding the actual original paint scheme design. Unfortunately, these images still did not provide enough detail to recreate the scheme to the level of accuracy Barnett was seeking.

“Working off small, pixilated photos meant that a lot of the small details and accurate stripe widths and spacing would be a best guess, and I wanted to avoid assumptions to the greatest extent possible,” Barnett said.

Barnet reached out to Cessna’s design department to see if they had any information. Unfortunately, most of the historic paint scheme information has been lost to time. It turns out there is no central repository for information related to Cessna paint schemes through the ages. Luckily, Roger Keating at Cessna happened to have a digital copy of the original 1958 Cessna 182A paint scheme design drawing. This gave Barnett the last items of detail needed to recreate the original paint scheme design. What’s more, the original drawings provided additional details that were not obvious in the photos of the aircraft, such as small mylar stripes on the inboard leading edges of the wings, that would have been omitted otherwise. With the scheme design taken care of, Barnett now needed accurate drawings of the aircraft.

“Without accurate drawings all the data in the world will not yield an effective design,” Barnett said.

Manufacturer drawings are typically hand-drawn and preserved in low-resolution electronic files. In this case, these images did not provide enough detail; these images could only be used as a preliminary guide.

“Once the preliminary tracings were created,” Barnett said, “many hours were spent with photos of the actual aircraft, as well as photos of Cessna 182As found online, to fill in the missing details and to significantly increase the accuracy of the drawings.

“Our last step in preparing for the design was to develop a similarly accurate 3-D model of the aircraft. This would help bring the design to life and validate the efficacy and accuracy of the design as it evolved on the aircraft. We built the 3-D models in-house using the accurate 2-D drawings we had prepared as a guide along with hundreds of photographs. With all the research data collected and with both accurate 2-D and 3-D drawings, we were finally ready to develop the paint scheme design drawings. With so much research and preparation, recreating the scheme was much easier now.”

The scheme was approved after just one round of drawings.

When it came to color matching, no historic color data was available from Cessna, so Barnett resorted to referencing the March 1958 AOPA Pilot cover photo. The aircraft has a creamy white base color, a black trim color, and an eye-catching turquoise split base. The black and creamy white were matched to existing standard colors available through Sherwin-Williams Aerospace, but a match in the Sherwin-Williams charts for the turquoise color was not available, so a custom color was created using a Pantone book. Using Pantone 2399, Sherwin-Williams created Skyscapes SS202777. Photos are not useable in the creation of a custom color, as they show many different shades of a color, depending on lighting and shadows.

With the paint scheme, AOPA branding, and colors finished, drawn, and approved, it was time to prepare the detailed dimensioned drawings and written specifications. This 18-page PDF file provides all details to the paint shop to accurately replicate the paint scheme and includes all the files necessary for creating the adhesive vinyl stencils and paint masks required during the layout process, including the original Cessna branding and the AOPA Sweepstakes logo. The paint shop uses the measurements and drawings to accurately lay out the paint scheme on the aircraft using a combination of hand layout and paint masks.

Scheme Designers generated the paint mask kit, which was shipped to Master Aircraft Services for use in applying the paint scheme design. This included masks for the three Cessna logos, wing registration numbers, fuselage registration numbers, and AOPA wings and Sweepstakes logos. Also provided were the small mylar elements for the wings, dorsal fin, and rudder.

“To accurately replicate a historic scheme, significant care, research, attention to detail, and accurate drawings were needed to yield a successful outcome,” Barnett said. “Allowing a paint shop to ‘wing it’ using a few photos is never good enough and leaves a myriad of small details up to the layout artist. This significantly reduces the likelihood of an accurate and satisfying outcome.” 

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