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LOHAN and the amazing technicolor spaceplane

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

LOHAN's out-of-this-world paint job: What happened next

One very long trip later, the spaceplane landed at a collection of brick buildings amid the rolling countryside outside Bidford-on-Avon, Warwickshire...

One of the buildings at Space Graphics Solutions

...where I was warmly welcomed by Chris Pyper...

Chris Pyper of Space Graphic Solutions

...and vinyl wrap chap Pete Cox:

Pete Cox of Space Graphic Solutions

First on the wrap agenda was to print the design on a really, really big machine:

The vinyl wrap coming out of the printer

This has to be left overnight for solvents to evaporate, so it wasn't until the next morning that Pete laminated the wrap...

Laminating the vinyl wrap

The parts of the Vulture 2 laid out while the wrap is laminated

...and then cut the parts from the sheet. Note the two copies of each element, just in case the first application went titsup:

Cutting the parts of the wrap from the laminated sheet

A rough fit of the wrap...

A rough fit of the wrap over the rear fuselage and wings

...followed by test with a scrap piece, to confirm proper adhesion...

Trying out a bit of scrap wrap on the Vulture's fuselage

A close-up of the test piece of wrap on the Vulture's fuselage

...was the prelude to whipping out the heat gun and giving it some welly:

Applying the wrap to the Vulture's rear fuselage

This was a particularly traumatic moment for me, seeing Pete turn up the heat on our magnificent aircraft, but it suffered no damage as the result of its ordeal.

Here are a few snaps of Pete working his magic with gun and fingers:

Heating the wrap with a heat gun

Heating and forming the wrap to the shape of the Vulture

Pressing the hot wrap onto the Vulture

Pete skilfully trimmed the wrap as required...

Trimming the wrap at the Vulture's rear end

The final touches trimming the wrap

...before turning his attention to the front fuselage upper section:

Wrangling the wrap onto the Vulture's upper front fuselage section

Trimming the wrap on the Vulture's upper front fuselage

Finally, after several hours, the job was a good 'un:

The finished vinyl wrap

The finished wrap on the assembled Vulture 2

So good, in fact, that we rushed mob-handed down the pub with the aircraft, took the photo at the top of this article, then proceeded directly to the bar for celebratory liquid nourishment.

I'd like to say thanks very much to SGS for their tremendous work and generous hospitality. My liver is still recovering from the effects of the latter, so I look forward to a return match at some stage, specifically with Chris and Dean.

In that spirit, we invite readers to raise a pint or two to SGS, and all those who contributed to the search for the perfect spaceplane livery, which we reckon is pretty well what we've got. Cheers. ®


More from the lovely LOHAN:

  • You can find full LOHAN coverage right here.
  • If you're new to LOHAN, seek out our mission summary for enlightenment.
  • There are photos our our magnificent Vulture 2 spaceplane here, and detailed structural plans here.
  • For your further viewing pleasure, we have all our photographic material stored on Flickr.
  • Our LOHAN and Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) videos live on YouTube.
  • We sometimes indulge in light consensual tweeting, as you can see here.

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

  • 3T RPD logo
  • University of Southampton logo
  • Applied Vacuum Engineering logo
  • Escher Technologies
  • Flashpoint Fireworks logo
  • HAB Supplies logo
  • Rock 7 logo
  • Random Engineering logo
  • Space Graphic Solutions logo
  • 3D Robotics logo

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