Ryan Beckley completed his RV4 build in late 2020 and like many other home builders was very eager to get the aircraft in the sky and as a result, the paintwork was rather rushed, the aircraft looked good but it was not quite the finish that Ryan had dreamed of.
A good friend and fellow airline pilot was busy building an RV8 and had it painted by the team at Aircraft Inc based at Krugersdorp Airfield. Ryan fell in love with their work and asked Aircraft Inc to refinish his aircraft to the same exacting standards. At that stage, his aircraft only had 43hrs on the Hobbs meter.
“Ollie” as the RV is affectionately known arrived at Aircraft Inc in mid-January 2022 and the team went to work preparing her for painting. A few days later Ollie had been paint stripped and dissembled and was now ready for the intricate paintwork to begin. One of the trademarks of Aircraft Inc is the ability to add all detail without the use of plastic decals, all registrations, lettering and personal designs are permanently painted on the aircraft eliminating the need to replace PVC decals that degrade over time.
Dialogue was entered into to paint the aircraft in a similar scheme, with the addition of some metallics and accent lines to bring it to life. Some minor fibreglass faults were corrected and US air force insignia was updated with Matte invasion stripes on the wings and fuselage. Basic interior touch-ups were done and the instrument panel was refinished with a carbon fibre finish. The instructions were sent from Ryan to Aircraft Inc via email and WhatsApp, as he was in Hong Kong at the time, sometimes taking on a rather hilarious format of pictures with crude labels.
The entire project took only six weeks and on 2 March Patrick Watson test flew the completed aircraft, very impressively there were no snags reported this alone is a major feat as the aircraft was stripped to its bare bones and assembled once the painting was done.
Aircraft Inc is a Robinson R22, R44 and R66 maintenance facility and an authorized R44 Service Centre in addition they are general aviation maintenance and custom paint facility that specialize in custom paintwork on all general aviation aircraft.
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