Precious Metal at Reno

Ron Cole:

I was contacted by the Precious Metal team back in May of 2014. ‘Would I be interested in painting the Precious Metal P-51 for the racing team?’ They’d participated in the National Championship Air Races for years, but they felt that the subject and the participating aircraft had been underrepresented in the genre of aviation art, and art in general. In keeping with their goal of breaking barriers whenever possible, they wanted to change that. I was promised that my name and logo would be featured prominently on the aircraft. Of course I said, Yes! I’ll do that!

The project was certainly a bit of a challenge, and for me that’s always a good thing. Their air- craft was a mix of waxed lacquer and polished aluminum, and with a name like Precious Metal there was no way I’d get away with a painting that didn’t reveal reflections and glare at every opportunity. All the stuff I love to do. Not every warbird offers opportunities to reveal those hard- to-depict attributes. Of course I needed to depict speed, too.

The end product could not have gone over any better, and I was utterly tickled to see my logo on the aircraft. Funny inside secret: The aircraft in my logo is a caricatured Japanese WWII Raiden interceptor. It was my favorite airplane as a kid, and I well remember Steve Hinton open- ing the cockpit of the world’s only Raiden for me when I was too young to drive. Now it can be said that the Raiden has taken to the air again on the side of one of the world’s fastest piston- engined machines!

Link to website: www.warbirdsnews.com/warbirds-…