Eagle’s Stripe: new livery for the Pioneer 300!

It’s news time in Alpi Aviation liveries!

As you may have noticed if you follow us on social media, few weeks ago we delivered a Pioneer 300 with a new livery, which we showed in a short video. Are you ready to know the details? Read on

To explain to us what this livery is characterized by is who has designed and studied it with us, Mauro Roder of OKB 01 Creative Military Graphics.

“Alpi Aviation contacted me driven by the need to create a restyling and rationalization of the liveries of their Pioneer 300 and Griffon, which could also be adopted for the other aircraft produced.
Until then, my experience was linked to the national and foreign military aviation world, a world characterized by “special colors”: unique liveries, not reproduced in series.

What had been asked to create could not have been “unique”, but something easily repeatable on an industrial level. As such it had to fall within the parameters of economy and practicality of execution typical of the industrial world.

However, these parameters could not ignore the elegance, originality and appeal of the Italian Style.

With these points well in mind, the very first thing I put as “necessary” was first of all an immediate recognition of the product – and logo – in flight, a recognition that should have materialized with a small revolution. This “revolution”, if I may be allowed to call it that, was the abandonment of a traditional feature of the civil aeronautical world: the white undersurface.

Why “abandon”?
A little historical / technical excursus is necessary.

“Abandon” because any light-colored object in flight at medium-low altitudes – observed from the ground – loses visibility and contrast with the sky compared to a dark object since, technically, any object is against the sky. This optical / visual characteristic is typical of the vast majority of combat aircraft camouflages that since the beginning, had -and have- the lower surfaces in shades of light gray so as to make the aircraft less visible from a possible enemy on the ground.

In one word: camouflage.

But it was the USAF that was the first to understand the intrinsic dangers of a military training aircraft equipped with a light or white livery so, at the end of the 1980s the new white liveries began to appear on the T-37 USAF – for the upper surfaces (thus to ensure maximum visibility from an aircraft at a higher altitude thanks to the contrast with the ground) – and black / midnight blue for all lower surfaces.

Furthermore, as reported in the book “WILLIAMS, the quest for silver wings” (Philip Handleman, Superbase 13, Osprey Aerospace 1990), “having the aircraft in two distinct colors is to assist an outside observerin determining aircraft direction and attitude”.

This livery is still used by the T-6 II USAF, USN etc. The black / dark “military training aircraft” concept was also later developed with the USAF T-38s and the RAF and RCAF Hawks, the latter two with full black livery.
With these prestigious precedents, why make yourself less visible and consequently decrease safety in flight as well? Why not borrow the successes and teachings?

With this premise, I first proposed the completely black lower part of the aircraft with only the wing tip adorned with the Alpi Aviation logo that would have framed one of the wings, creating a clear “detachment” created by the two naturally contrasting colors.

Adorning the wing infrados with the logo, in addition to a precise communication choice of the brand, would have led to an “incompleteness” in the livery. Intended incompleteness because as taught by neuroscience applied to graphics and communication, what is not complete the eye must complete it, dwelling for a longer time than what is complete. It is remembered as original once the information has been acquired (completed and pigeonholed).

The first aircraft with the “prototype” livery (because unlike the standard ones, this prototype livery is completely composed of stickers) was delivered to the lucky customer in October 2021.

As can be seen from the photos, the fuselage and the upper surfaces remained white with the addition of a series of sinuous “waves” with a traditional shape very different from what will be the second, new livery, with the same characteristics of the lower surfaces but a very different approach for fuselage and  wings!

The news is therefore not over, stay tuned!