Fuselage Paintings

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Are there limits on what is allowed on the fuselage of an aircraft? (Not including weight). For example, if I wanted to paint a flag or some logo, could it be done legally even if it's just a small ga airplane like a C152 or C172?
 
As long as the N##### is properly displayed, then anything goes. Many homebuilders get really creative with their paint jobs.

Most of the time you will be selling the plane before it needs another paint job. So, putting a really wild paint job could easily reduce the resale value.

Also adding too many layers of paint can really reduce the useful load. Paint weighs about 8-10 pounds per gallon, and a light plane take sevreal gallons. Adding two or three coats of base, and then several diffrent colors can easily add up to 50-60 pounds.

Most planes are painted white, since white dosen't absoarb heat like dark colors do. Light colors also are easier to spot. ERAU has all their planes painted with "invasion stripes" on their wings to make them more visible.
 
how bout if you get someone to strip all the paint off and polish the metal so that the plane is shiny.. id guess that would actually reduce weight, but would you need some type of sealer over the polished metal?

yeah.. thats true about the ERAU planes.. you know its a riddle plane when ever you see it.. in the air or if its flying over you..

IMO i liked the old paint job better.. oh... me and my friend were having a discussion about the ERAU design.. would they be able to legally copywrite there paint job? If its possible, i wouldnt put it past them..
 
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how bout if you get someone to strip all the paint off and polish the metal so that the plane is shiny.. id guess that would actually reduce weight, but would you need some type of sealer over the polished metal?

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Bare aluminium must be constantly polished to prevent corrosion. This definately saves weight, but it is a LOT of work to polish a whole airplane once a week.

Many bombers in WW2 were left unpainted so they could carry more bombs & gas. Since they were not expected to be used for very long, and cost wasn't a real issue, they just removed any corrosion that developed.

AA still leaves a large section of their planes unpainted. They claim that the cost savings from not having the weight and maintence of the paint job offsets the cost of polishig and sealing that area of the airframe, but nobody else does.
 
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