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LOHAN and the amazing technicolor spaceplane

Our Vulture 2 livery is wrapped, and it's les noix du mutt

You need a montage, even Rocky had a montage

Rewinding five months, our Vulture 2 paint job kicked off with a few supplies...

Primer, paint and masking tape ready for the Vulture 2 paint job

...the application of some primer...

A close-up of the wing surface after sanding and priming

...and the first tentative tin-rattling as I painted the aircraft's pointy beak:

The lower nose section of the Vulture 2, with the electronics bay masked off

The painted nose of the Vulture 2, with its yellow upper and red underside

Having started to get the hang of this paint job malarkey, it was time to attack the big challenge: the spaceplane's rear fuselage and wings. With the bird fully primed and sanded...

The Vulture 2 primed and ready to paint

...I first laid into the rudders, with a few coats of yellow:

The rudder partially masked and painted yellow

Next up was a coat of white...

The Vulture with its initial coat of white

...which I then masked off as required. The red lines are to indicate the edge of the masking, not the actual tape itself:

Snap of the Vulture 2 with the masked area for the red paint coat marked

I then slapped on a coat of red...

The red paint on the underside of the Vulture's rear fuselage and wings

...and removed the masking to reveal the finished rudders (a tip of the hat to our Spanish team members)...

The finished rudder in red and yellow

...and the red and white elements of the paint job:

The red coat after removal of the masking

After masking up for the final blue coat...

The initial masking tape applied for the blue coat

The finished masking for the blue coat

...and lovingly applying that...

The blue paint applied to the Vulture 2

...I went through the same process with the canards...

The painted Vulture 2 canards

and voilà:

Antonio and Katarina with the finished underside paintjob

That's my mate Antonio, who's always keen to lend a hand, and apprentice boffin Katarina, posing with the Vulture 2 shortly before it was loaded into an enormous box for shipping to Blighty, where it had a date with Space Graphic Solutions.

The Vulture 2 in its packing case

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