Photos by Fried Color Graphics and Samuel King Junior.
The Air Force Armament Museum (Near Eglin Air Force Base in Florida) recently repainted its TP-51 Mustang, for the first time in more than 30 years. But this time it was ‘painted’ with vinyl decals.
Photo via Fried Color Graphics, July 2019.
The idea is credited to iSpark and the 96th Test Wing innovation office. Originally the museum’s director wanted to vinyl wrap an outdoor aircraft display’s painted canopy so it would look like glass.
Photo via Fried Color Graphics, July 2019.
Employees kept adding ideas concerning what could be wrapped until finally they asked ‘why not wrap the entire display’? Vinyl wrapping is waterproof and is used on yachts, luxury vehicles, racecars and advertising vehicles.
Photo via Fried Color Graphics, July 2019.
U.S. Air Force photo by Samuel King Junior, 28OCT2019.
Once the U.S. Air Force approved of the idea the problem was getting funding. That’s when iSpark, which owns the Armstrong vinyl flooring maker, immediately funded the wrapping project.
Oh no, not another hanging chad! Photo via Fried Color Graphics, July 2019.
Another plus to wrapping the 1:1 scale Mustang was that the indoor display aircraft could be ‘painted’ where it sat. It also took only one person (a local contractor) ten days (during July 2019) to wrap the Mustang in the colors of the Tuskegee Airman Mustang flown by Charles Bailey (never mind that the museum’s Mustang is two seat TP-51, as indicated by the bigger canopy and second seat in the cockpit).
U.S. Air Force photo by Samuel King Junior, 28OCT2019.
Contractor Gary Householder said he could’ve gotten the wrap done in less than ten days but “Whenever I’m working on a wrap, people tend to like to watch. This time, they just thought I was a museum employee.”
Photo via Fried Color Graphics, July 2019.
The Air Force Armament Museum plans to wrap as many of its display aircraft as it can.
POKEY AIRPORT 2012 & 2014:
This plane has been around for a while. Bob Hoover began naming his P-51D airshow planes Ole Yeller starting in 1962. The FAA declared him physically unfit to fly in the 1990s. John Bagley of Rexburg, Idaho, is the current Ole Yeller owner/operator. Photo by AAron B. Hutchins, 02AUG2014.
P-51D MUSTANG, OLE YELLER FLIES ON IN IDAHO
All jacked-up!
Thrust reverser doors waiting to be re-installed.
Those turbines are hungry.
New door hinges.
New leading edge slat seals.
Trailing edge panels.
Prepping for new fuel tank seals.
Oregon National Guard’s Project 926, move the old tail number 926 OV-1C Mohawk ‘gate guard’ to a better location.
23OCT2019 was the culmination of three years of volunteer work by Oregon National Guard retirees who worked and flew the OV-1 Mohawk from 1972 to 1992. Almost all of that three years was spent restoring the gate guard.
The new home of the 926 Mohawk is at Deibert Flight Facility, Army Aviation Support Facility.
The official dedication ceremony was held 02NOV2019.
Doctor Joe Masessa, of 
Mohawk Airshows flies the POW-MIA ‘flying monument’.
Somebody needs to make a decal sheet of the Flying Monument.
From February 1983, a NASA-U.S. Army operated Grumman OV-1C over Edwards AFB.
U.S. Army-NASA OV-1C Mohawk, automated stall warning system tests @ Edwards AFB, July 1983.
Hasegawa’s now ancient 1:72 scale OV-1B (also issued by Frog in the early 1970s) can be easily modified to a C version by scratch-building the IR glass in the nose.
Roden’s 1:48 scale D boxing depicts the IR nosed Mohawk. The D Mohawk is simply a consolidation of all the best upgrades from previous versions. Oddly, Roden’s C boxing does not depict the IR nose, and the instructions even tell you not to use the IR nose part (which is included on the clear sprue of every Roden Mohawk kit).
Roden’s C version also does not come with the SLAR, but you still need to get it because it comes with fuselage mounted flare dispensers and ‘classified’ electronic recon under-wing pods.
On 02OCT2019, McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas, unveiled a KC-135 Stratotanker with nose art commemorating 150 years of the City of Derby.
Plot of ground to be used as a new display of model tanker aircraft of the 916th Air Refueling Wing, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, 06AUG2019.
Installing a KC-135 Stratotanker, 18SEP2019.
KC-10 Extender.
25SEP2019, Colonel Craig McPike, 916th Air Refueling Wing commander, and unit historian Stephen K. Beckett, like their new model display of the KC-46 Pegasus, KC-10 and KC-135.
