Reg readers rise to Vulture 2 paintjob challenge

Shades at the ready as we reveal your startling liveries

Fans of our Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) mission have outdone themselves in offering suggestions as to just how we should paint our magnificent Vulture 2 spaceplane.

Given that the world's first 3D-printed, rocket-powered vehicle is currently a bit lacking in the visibility department, as you can see from this delightful snap featuring team members (from L-R) Dave Akerman, Rob Eastwood, Paul Shackleton and Claire Edwards...

...we decided to throw the matter over to our beloved readers.

To get the ball rolling, we knocked together a few possibilities, including traditional SPB silver and orange, red and white, and an eye-catching yellow and black:

Down in the commenters' mosh pit, there was plenty of support for El Reg red, or black, or British racing green, while true patriots demanded we fly the flag with a proper red, white and blue livery.

Well, there a plenty of ways to skin a Vulture, as it were, and on the matter of skin, here are three inevitable submissions which won't make the final cut, entertaining as they are:

The lovely Lindsay Lohan provided further inspiration for your fertile minds, and for enlightenment see here and here:

In the "Land of Hope and Glory" category, try this trio of flag-wavers:

Naturally, our American cousins weren't going to take this lying down, although Gareth Jenkins did restrict himself to suggesting we consider a NASA-style design:

Fans of Belgian comic book characters, meanwhile, weighed in with a triplet of plausible ideas:

Interesting, but what about the concept of really high visibility? Sunglasses at the ready...

A few commenters insisted we finish the entire aircraft in chrome, like some form of supersonic Philippe Starck lemon squeezer. The idea is as impractical as the Frenchman's kitchen design classic, but silver still gets a look-in among your concepts:

Jim Price noted that since our spaceplane's a "V2", it might as well look like one. We also have two other schemes with black and white, with some tasty red thrown into the mix:

Finally, cast your eyes over this little lot, falling into the uncategorised, er, category:

Good work one and all. We've got time for further ideas before making a final selection, since we're still fretting over exactly how to apply paint* to our rocket ship, so if you think you can do better, here's a template for your colouring pleasure (click on the image for an engorged version)...

...on which you can work your magic and send to me right here. The deadline for submissions in this Friday, 18 October, after which we'll bring you more lively reader paintjobs, and consider how to make the fateful decision. ®

Bootnote

*We've had advice from Vulture 2 printers 3T RPD Ltd, and are going to do a test on a spare part.

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Further LOHAN resources:

• New to LOHAN? Try this mission summary for enlightenment.
• You can find full LOHAN coverage right here.
• Join the expert LOHAN debate down at Reg forums.
• All the LOHAN and Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) vids live on YouTube.
• For our SPB photo archive, proceed directly to Flickr.
• We sometimes indulge in light consensual tweeting, as you can see here.

LOHAN - A Special Projects Bureau production in association with...

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