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US navy aircraft lettering


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OK dumb question but dose anyone know what the font style that was used on the US naval aircraft from the 60’s was? Or is there even a style. I need to make some decals for an airplane I am working on.

Thanks!

Edited by redgriffins38
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If they follow the Air Force from about that same time I don't think there was a font style then. My A.F.T.O. 1-1-4 does not list any type of font used for aircraft. All it shows is the style of letters and where they go on each type of aircraft..

At least I don't remember seeing any.

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  • 13 years later...

Here are the pages from the Navy MIL-STD-2161A. This style of lettering has been in use on USN aircraft since late WWII. In most web sites where fonts are down loadable, you see it referred to as "Longbeach",  "Norfolk", or even "USN Stencil". It differs from the USAF font (Amarillo) in that USAF has a 45 degree angle cut on the letters/numbers where as the Navy is 30 degree and the characters are wider.

These are the pages we would use in the fleet to apply letters and numbers to our aircraft. Rarely however would you ever see a "2" done as shown here, with the lower leg "cut". We did that on one of our aircraft once and the Skipper didn't like how it looked, so we filled it in.

 

805453398_NAVYFont.thumb.JPG.a5a29176b29fb80dfecdd20c0a40e224.JPG126433747_NAVYFont1.thumb.JPG.e4b9d188145fb103f17c89618a2f189c.JPG

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The downloadable font linked to below was created using the above - the corresponding page from 1971's MIL-I-18464G shows minor differences for just a couple of characters, namely the slightly-wider top of the 'A', and the square leg of the fore-mentioned '2':

MIL-I-18464Gp42.thumb.jpg.0ca19a3e3964228740fb5f629c6bcdf5.jpg

https://www.moddb.com/mods/aces-typografics/addons/aces-mil-std-2161c

 

Edited by andyf117
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  • 2 weeks later...

I've made some decals for Navy and Marine aircraft of the period, and the lettering was very, very inconsistent. You could have half a dozen different letter aspect ratios / spacings on the same aircraft. If you are trying to replicate the markings of a particular aircraft, it's best to get good pictures and just trace over what was lettered on the real thing.

 

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