One of the joys of building your own airplane is that you can design a one-of-a-kind paint scheme.
For Wayne Hadath of Kirchner, Ontario, Canada, that process began with a desire to honor the Canadian Air Force. Eventually it grew into a most unusual paint scheme featuring “hidden” pictures of a variety of objects from dinosaurs, fish and ducks to clouds and children.
We caught up with Hadath this past summer at AirVenture, where he was proudly displaying the F-1 Rocket which he built from a parts kit.
According to Hadath, the design grew out of his desire to recreate the paint scheme of a Canadian Air Force CF-18 that was done in primer with a tiger motif.
“I noticed that there were images that were either deliberately placed or inadvertently appeared in the scheme,” he said. “It became apparent that duplicating this particular scheme on my F-1 Rocket would be very difficult.”
He discussed the problem with his wife, Barb, and a friend of the couple’s, Kim Bedwell, who ultimately suggested that Hadath develop his own design rather than try to duplicate the tiger motif.
“It came to be that the shapes were more important than the tiger theme,” he recalled. “My particular scheme developed out of my desire to create shapes that were important to me and my family.”
It took the combined efforts of Hadath, his wife and Bedwell to lay out the design, then Hadath did the application.
“I was surprised how nervous I was at how the finished product would turn out,” he said. “I am extremely pleased with the end product and enjoyed the work and the creativity that went into the undertaking.”
The “creative undertaking” includes individual shapes as well as scenes, he noted.
“For example, on the left side there is a scene where clouds move across the wing and fuselage and morph into many shapes — rabbit to butterfly to duck — and from the fuselage into a fish and different dinosaurs. The right wing has the scene of a woman kneeling and dreaming of a child, which morphs into a cloud. Distinct shapes are a cat, a wizard hat, a dog, a sea otter, a heart and seagulls.”
It’s not uncommon for people to stop and stare at Hadath’s airplane, or do a double take. Different people see different things, he noted.
“People often come up to me and tell me of shapes that they see, some of which I did not put in and, in some cases, have never noticed before,” he reported.
“Curiously enough, women and children seem universally to like the scheme, but men sometimes take some time to warm up to it,” he continued. “Most people seem to see the black shapes first, but there have been a few rare individuals who talk about the gray shapes.”
To see more of Hadath’s work, go to JustPlaneWorks.com