In 1985 BAF FA-62 received a special livery to celebrate the 25th NATO Tigermeet, hosted by 31SQ at Kleine-Brogel.
This livery is now available for virtual flight in DCS.
Read about the special story behind this livery in the description or in the README file attached in the download.
Enjoy! Please, let me know what you think of this livery...
Background:
In 1985, Belgian Air Force 31SQ. At Kleine-Brogel was host for the 25th NATO Tigermeet.
To mark the occasion, tradition says a special tiger livery must be created.
As you probably know F-16's are painted with a special paint that makes the aircraft less radar-reflective, therefore repainting an F-16 is a very expensive thing. However, the Tigers of Three-One wanted to keep-up with tradition, by painting a tigerstriped aircraft for the 1985 Tigermeet.
Luckily W. Lippens, who was the paint manufacture for the Belgian Air Force at the time came up with a solution.
The solution consisted of painting a special plastic coating over the grey-paint radar absorbing paint.
When the colours should have to be removed, they just had to peel off the plastic layer, instead of completely repainting the aircraft.
But a few weeks before painting, doubt about flight-safety arose, and it was judged that it would be to dangerous to fly the aircraft.
As a none flying aircraft would take away the full spirit of the aircraft, the project was allmost cancelled.
But Belgians, being Belgian, we are known to come up with a good old compromise.
FA-62 was already prepared to be painted, standing in the paint shop with everything masked, the compromise was that nothing was to be painted in front of the air-intake. Limiting the risks for pieces of the paint to be ingested by the engines.
The painters applied no less than 8 coats of the plastic primer. Afterwards, the yellow base was sprayed and the tigerstripes were painted.
This was done by painters 'Guy' Truyens, J.P. Van Regenmortel and Danny Coremans.
When finished the aircraft was was placed in a locked shelter, waiting to be used for the upcoming Tigermeet.
FA-62 did fly during the 1985 Tigermeet, but the new paint method was no succes.
During the first flight large pieces of the plastic coating were ripped off the fuselage, partially revealing the original paintsheme.
(The only picture taken in the air, I could find, shows this damage)
About the DCS Livery:
Livery made by Ruben Craninx, TigerTrigger [BE], made possible with the help from:
- Aviation photographer Laurent Heyligen, providing me with detailed information about the paintsheme, patches and history.
- The 31SQ. and Belgian Wings websites for background information and photoreferences.
- Thomas Vercauteren "Roughmaster" for allowing me to use his engine exhaust files.
