Air Force and Navy Tribute
Up next, we’ve got the Air Force and Navy tribute portions of Rodney’s Van’s Aircraft RV-10. This amazing art is all on the top of the wings. This is our third and final light painting of his beautiful aircraft (for now, at least) that Joannie and I had the privilege of light-painting at his cabin in northern Arizona.
Previously, we shared the Starboard and Port side versions of Liberty N104AZ. The links to their stories and images for both versions are below. Tributes to the U.S. Marines, our National Guard, and the U.S. Army were custom-painted on those sides of the aircraft. So amazing!
Here’s the first version of Liberty’s Starboard side light painting. In this version, we left the cabin and the trees in silhouette.
Light Painting the Starboard side of Liberty N104AAZ
Here’s the second version of the Port side, with the cabin and trees light-painted.
Light Painting the Port side of Liberty N104AAZ
Light-Paint Like MacGyver
After completing the photography for the Starboard and Port sides, I knew that we were missing a substantial amount of the art on Liberty N104AZ, specifically, the tributes to the Air Force and Navy. Those are on top of the wings.
How to get a decent vantage point from above for our camera to see them was the problem. I looked at the possibility of placing a camera on top of Rodney’s hangar, but the roof was too steep for my taste; it was far too risky (and both Joannie and Rodney were not thrilled with the idea of my going up there).
Using a ladder wouldn’t be stable enough, and I didn’t really have a way to attach our camera to a ladder anyway. However, there was one item in the hangar that might work – the flatbed on the back of Rodney’s ATV!
To get a higher vantage point, we got a little creative using Rodney’s ATV as the tripod platform!
It wasn’t quite as “MacGyver” as a couple of years ago, when I was light-painting Mike & Regina’s Bell 505 helicopter. On that one, I attached a camera to their deck railing using painter’s tape and a dime! But to get a decent view of Liberty N104AZ from above, it was still somewhat creative – and it worked!
Light-Painting the Port Side Wing
The United States Air Force is the featured custom-painted art on the Port side.
Tributes to our United States Air Force are the featured art on the Port side wing.
At the top of the Port side wing is Claire Lee Chennault, an American military aviator best known for his leadership of the “Flying Tigers” and the Chinese Nationalist Air Force in World War II. Right below him is a Claire Lee Chennault, and below that is a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. At the bottom of the wing is a Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II – Warthog.
Back up at the top of the Port wing is the Air Force Insignia and a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. A portrait of Major General Jennie Leavitt is next. She was the first woman to command an Air Force combat fighter wing! Just below her is a Northrup Grumman B-2 Spirit (aka Stealth Bomber).
And at the bottom of the wing is, just under the Stealth Bomber, a Northrup T-38 Talon. The final aircraft, closest to the fuselage, is a General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon.
Light-Painting The Fuselage
The top of Liberty’s fuselage features a custom-painted Missing-Man Formation! The attention to detail on this aircraft is nothing short of amazing!
Not to be left out, the main fuselage has a beautifully painted military tribute as well! A Missing-Man Formation is custom-painted there.
Light-Painting the Starboard Side Wing
The United States Navy is the featured custom-painted art on the Starboard side.
The custom-painted art on the Starboard side of Liberty N104AZ is an impressive tribute to our US Navy!
On the Starboard side, from left to right, are the USS Constitution (“Old Ironsides”) and a portrait of a sailor. The USS Arizona (BB-39) is next with a Vought F4U Tomcat just above and a nuclear submarine below at the bottom of the wing.
The Navy’s insignia is next, and a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier to its right. Flying above the carrier is a Grumman F-14 Tomcat.
Moving further to the right, we have a gold anchor wrapped with a chain or cable. That’s the US Navy’s symbol of naval tradition, strength, and stability. Right next to that is a portrait of United States Navy SEAL Christopher Scott Kyle with a US Navy mission scene closing out the Starboard side artworks.
Light Painting Liberty N104AZ’s Air Force and Navy Tribute – The Movie
As always, we’ve created a short “Build Video” of the project to show what it took to light-paint Liberty N104AZ, from above. The link to check it out on our YouTube channel is below:
This version was relatively simple, as light-painting goes. We only needed 35 images for the photography part. In post-production, just 12 of those were used, in a total of 36 unique layers. I took the liberty (pardon the pun) of removing some things on the ground; I felt they were a distraction, so they’re gone.
Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read about our light-painting of this amazing aircraft!
There’s More, a Lot More!
If you love what you see here, we have an entire website that’s dedicated to our light-painting. In fact, we are in the process of a totally new look on that site – and it went live just a couple of days ago! We’re still tweaking it a bit, but it looks pretty cool so far!
It can be found at MichaelAndersonLightPainting.com – M&J