Rani Awad

SPECIAL REPORT| PAINTS
BBJ’s world class paint job sets new standards for skill and elegance
Shades of grey
We’ve seen whacky paint jobs on BBJs and
austere ones, but Jet Aviation Basel’s design
and successful implementation of
waves in 19 shades of grey, running noseto-tail
down a 737-700 completions project,
is far and away one of the most challenging,
subtle and sophisticated designs yet to grace a BBJ.
Some waves start off grey at the nose, strengthening to black
in the middle of the fuselage and fading back to grey at the tail.
Identical waves run on both sides of the fuselage, and from a paint
application standpoint the challenges were enormous. The color
transitions had to be seamless and smooth to the eye with the
same “fade” taking place simultaneously on both sides of the fuselage.
Translating this into the real world of potentially messy paint
and spray equipment and implementing it on the curved surface of
a BBJ was a daunting challenge.
The inspiration for the design was initially conceived of by the
BBJ’s owner and spouse. They saw it as complementing the aircraft’s
interior design, which had been created by the Jet Aviation
Basel Completions Center, working closely with the principal.
Jeremie Caillet, Director Project Management at the Jet Aviation
Basel Completions Center, explains that the inspiration for the
external paint design scheme was heavily infl uenced by the mini-
76 International | Autumn 2015