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I was looking for similar posts in the forum, and I'm surprised nobody ever asked. Well, perhaps I didn't found... :thumbsup:

Is there a list available which fonts were used for which aircraft, nation, stencil, marking... and where do you get this True Type Fonts from, to print own decals? How do TwoBobs and the like find the correct letters?

I.e. Amarillo USAF.ttf, or Stencil.ttf

Thank you

skyraider

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USAF and USN fonts are available from TLai Enterprises:

http://www.tlai.com/med_des/modeling.html

Canadian fonts were made by one Mr. Horvath who kindly made them freely available on the Net. These are gone now, but many individuals have the Zip files and there may be a mirror somewhere. My copies are somewhere on my home machine's backup disks.

I doubt that professional decal designers have fonts for every country's aircraft markings as you imagine. Many of the times a commercially available font is close enough, or you don't need a font since you can draw one or two digits or letters you need individually.

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Thank you for that input, but somehow I'm not satisfied with it.

I think every font has its name, some are protected, and some are free (see Pepsi, Cola, I am a spammer....please report this post., Porsche...). Our company has paid for a font set for the corporate identity, and you could buy it as well. The difficult part is: finding the fonts name to order correctly!

I strongly believe the fonts used in military aviation are commercial as all the others, too. The trick is to find the correct name!

Tell me if you now more about, or if the above is not true!

skyraider

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I strongly believe the fonts used in military aviation are commercial as all the others, too. The trick is to find the correct name!

Regardless of what you strongly believe in, there was no concept of computer fonts for the majority of military aviation history. Aircraft markings were applied using stencils cut from various materials, and some were decals. Since these were never designed with computers, I doubt these were ever made as fonts. Good luck finding commercial fonts of WWII French aircraft serials or Vietnamese Air Force serial numbers.

Starting in the late nineties, vinyl cutting plotters and computers to drive them became so inexpensive and accessible that paint shops started using them. It was only then that some standard fonts started to replace the stencil templates. Now so many aircraft paint shops use standard fonts that can be found in every PC that it is not too difficult to make custom decals for these at home without purchasing additional fonts.

I maintain that you will not be able to find commercial fonts for the majority of historic aircraft markings. So can consider doing them yourself like the TLai fellow did. Unless you will be using it day in and day out, it simply is not worth the work; I just draw one-off serial numbers in Corel Draw. Things that are frequently used like USAF tail code lettering and US Navy modex numbers can be sourced from decal sheets or fonts like those I listed. MyFonts.com has an extensive search engine where you can search thousands of commercial font offerings.

Kursad

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Thank you for your help.

I have some experience with military, and something I have learned there (at least in my country), is the fact that no one had the right to paint something on anything, if it was not specified somewhere in a book (like the fonts of the old DIN – Deutsch Industrie Norm). And I know that this rules were even more respected in past days than today.

That's why I was asking (beleving :thumbsup: ) like this.

I'm sure that (perhaps not on computer but on paper) all this fonts are standardized and available trough spec. sources. The rest is my scanners work.

Here an example of the Swiss air force letters on the F-5E. Nothing is NOT specified.

http://www.eusebio.ch/images/f5l.gif

BTW, I don’t NEED THEM, I’m just wondering if they would be available somewhere.

skyraider

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Thank you for your help.

I have some experience with military, and something I have learned there (at least in my country), is the fact that no one had the right to paint something on anything, if it was not specified somewhere in a book (like the fonts of the old DIN – Deutsch Industrie Norm). And I know that this rules were even more respected in past days than today.

That's why I was asking (beleving ;) ) like this.

I'm sure that (perhaps not on computer but on paper) all this fonts are standardized and available trough spec. sources. The rest is my scanners work.

Here an example of the Swiss air force letters on the F-5E. Nothing is NOT specified.

http://www.eusebio.ch/images/f5l.gif

BTW, I don’t NEED THEM, I’m just wondering if they would be available somewhere.

skyraider

They ARE specified, they are just not specified as computer fonts. Their dimensions are strictly regulated, and there are physical templates for them. Not everything is/was done with computers.

Good luck.

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