Just finished the paint and decals on this one. Its a kitbash of a Madcow 1.6 fiberglass Black Brant. Generally, kits tend to be bashed into something, but this one was mostly just bashed out of being a Black Brant. It's pretty much just reshaped fins and a different nose cone. A kevlar shock cord was wrapped around the 29mm motor mount, a LOC ogive nose cone went up front and an Aerotech motor retainer out back. (Very nice retainers, by the way)
It flew last weekend at the AARG launch in Hutto Texas on an Aerotech F42-8T to about 1500 feet. Very nice flight! It already had the orange and black, but the rest was just finished this weekend.
The "story" for this one is that it is some kind of advanced supersonic/hypersonic target drone used by the Navy, perhaps for anti-missile training. The Navy and Air Force use a variety of target drones (like the Jayhawk) for research, testing and training. The paint job and decals on this one were designed to look like a typical drone paint job.
The base color is Krylon day glow orange, the black and yellow was masked and airbrushed using Vallejo acrylic model paints. Since I plan on weathering this one a bit, I did a little sanding on the black to look a little worn before adding any decals. Decals came from the spare decal box and are from a Navy fighter, a Nascar racer, and an old Army truck! The fin mounting rails were made from aluminum tape with screws/rivets embossed with a piece of brass tubing.
I'm letting the decals dry for a while, then it will be shot with matte clear coat to seal in the decals and get rid of their shine. After that it will get a bit of weathering since these drones are used many times, and often repaired. I'm planning to chip the paint a bit, maybe fade the orange a little. Dirt and smudges tend to add themselves over time, but I might do a bit of minor streaking just to get it started.
Pics (That dayglo paint sure does weird things on my phone's camera!):
It flew last weekend at the AARG launch in Hutto Texas on an Aerotech F42-8T to about 1500 feet. Very nice flight! It already had the orange and black, but the rest was just finished this weekend.
The "story" for this one is that it is some kind of advanced supersonic/hypersonic target drone used by the Navy, perhaps for anti-missile training. The Navy and Air Force use a variety of target drones (like the Jayhawk) for research, testing and training. The paint job and decals on this one were designed to look like a typical drone paint job.
The base color is Krylon day glow orange, the black and yellow was masked and airbrushed using Vallejo acrylic model paints. Since I plan on weathering this one a bit, I did a little sanding on the black to look a little worn before adding any decals. Decals came from the spare decal box and are from a Navy fighter, a Nascar racer, and an old Army truck! The fin mounting rails were made from aluminum tape with screws/rivets embossed with a piece of brass tubing.
I'm letting the decals dry for a while, then it will be shot with matte clear coat to seal in the decals and get rid of their shine. After that it will get a bit of weathering since these drones are used many times, and often repaired. I'm planning to chip the paint a bit, maybe fade the orange a little. Dirt and smudges tend to add themselves over time, but I might do a bit of minor streaking just to get it started.
Pics (That dayglo paint sure does weird things on my phone's camera!):
