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Nature’s most beautiful avian species’ aesthetic is transferred to a beautiful plane paintjob that is bound to attract some eyes in the sky!
Aerospace technology has grown by leaps and bounds ever since the Wright brothers pioneered and perfected the art of machinery that can take flight. Today, there are thousands of planes both commercial and private flying across the world. Carrying both visitors and businesspeople jet setting to other parts of the world. So how is it that they all still look so bad even after a hundred years?
Saying “No more!” to the generic designs of planes today being painted white and a flight company logo stenciled on its side, the Happy Design Studio’s very own Didier Wolff took it upon himself to create a one-of-a-kind and magical aircraft livery that is sure to draw the attention of a passersby on the ground look up to the sky!
The inception of the design all started with Wolff’s trip to a museum in Paris, where he was enamored by the beautiful blue-and-black feather from a Blue Jay. Armed with this visual aesthetic burned into his memory, he immediately drew up plans on how to translate the vibrant blue color of the Blue Jay to an airplane. And it was not an easy one to execute, too!
The project started life as an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet in dark grey paint straight from the factory. Using this color that he specifically chose as his blank canvas, he began making his first brushstrokes to individually paint 337 white lines on each side of the jet. Employing the help of 20 skilled painters from Mankiewicz, the global leader in aircraft coatings and RUAG aircraft paint shop that is based in Germany.
Taking over 2 weeks to complete and the project totaling up to 2,300 hours and using over 2.4 kilometers of tape. The finished product is a one-of-a-kind plane with 674 stripes of identical width, length and thickness hand-drawn on the fuselage, wings, turbines and tail. Meeting together in a chevron shape that gives the jet the final desired look.
At first glance, the design looks like a regular striped design. But once it takes flight in a sunny day, the zebra-colored plane immediately goes from black and white to ebony and steel blue. This effect is achieved by an optical illusion where our eyes are unable to see these two colors separately while the object is moving and processes them to become a singular color instead. Giving the plane a seemingly sapphire glow when flying a thousand feet in the air.
Although simple in nature, this Blue Jay aircraft is an incredibly complex and painstaking project that is 2 weeks in the making. Let’s hope that this will become a trend in private and commercial planes and ditch their traditional black and white paintjobs for something that is more eye-catching instead!
