Cessna 441 Conquest Paint
- Paint Lead: Bob Bowers
- Project Mechanical Lead: Chad Van Vliet – PRM
- Paint scheme by client supplied photos, adapted at UVA.
- Colours: Three in Sherwin Williams Aerospace Paint
- Matterhorn White
- Ruby Metallic
- Silver Metallic
- Full Strip and Paint
COMMENTS / DETAILED DESCRIPTION
C-FJVR came to us out of Edmonton Alberta by referral from Bill Davis of Davis Aircraft Services. Bill Davis is a very knowledgeable engineer and owns a very reputable company. This is the second referral from Bill and we really appreciate the business.
Aside from a couple typical structural issues, the main challenge with this aircraft was the amount of filler on the AC to begin with. Sometimes owners indicate to the paint shop that they want a fully “smooth” or “jet-like” finish. While not always, but often this is a mistake. What happens is that with the multiple layers of material you can get a lot of cracking and chipping into the substrate which can make a great paint job look older before it should.
That was what was happening with this Cessna 441 Conquest Paint job. You had 1/4″ of material flaking off in some high-vis areas of the AC which looked very poor. After strip and clean, the challenge we faced was ensuring that the right amount of filler was used to 1) Smooth out the more wavy areas of the AC in the metal and 2) Make sure that not too much filler was used that would endanger the integrity of the topcoats. We had to find the balance between looking smooth and putting too much material on the AC.
At the end of the day the project was a great success and the AC got a more contemporary scheme and likely lost several pounds of useable weight with the decreased amount of material on the AC.
Bob and Chad did an excellent job managing this completion and the client was very happy with the end result.
