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Font size of USAF aircraft stencils


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On 4/9/2018 at 1:22 AM, Cloud in the Wind said:

I’m curious if anyone is familiar with the font and size of USAF aircraft stencils. Especially the NO STEP stencils on many aircraft including my subject ... the RQ170

 

I’m creating my own at 1/48th scale and want to be sure that I’m in the right ballpark size.

 

I quickly browsed through Tech Order 1-1-4, but I did not find any information on 'NO STEP' markings. You could consult some decal sheets, and hope / assume that they were made accurately.

 

Tell us more about your RQ-170! Do you have enough information down to the NO STEP markings?!? I'm slowly doing one in 1/72.

 

rq170-11.jpg

 

Rob

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Hey Rob, thanks for the interest.  It looks like your building Italeri's version.  It's coming along nice.  Most of my model building is in paper card models - in fact mostly unmanned satellites and spacecraft.  I found a designer who designed an RQ-170 in 72nd scale, probably modeled off of Italeri's.  His kit can be found as a free download via paper-replika.com and on the designers BlogSpot.  Anyhow its easier to upscale a paper model than a plastic so that's what I've been working on.  However, his design wasn't as I'mcoming along as easily as I'd liked and the increase in size was creating some blurred graphics.  So I began to redesign the model on my own.  I've gathered graphics from youtube videos and images - trying hard to stay away from the Iranians as I'm not convinced that what they're showing is an unaltered craft.  I've gotten enough that I can feel more comfortable about the position of most parts and graphics. 

 

By the way, a reply by a fellow member and a digital caliper have confirmed a 1" height or approximately 100pt Font in Arial Black or 2.5pt in 1/48th scale.  Arial black looks best when printed on my setup.  I've yet to find the font type, but that's fine, the scale and printer settings limits what looks good in real life.

 

I'm still tweaking the inner support structure, wing spars a plenty.  This is an early prototype.  Obviously I'm savings on details of other exterior parts and ink until I've things better dialed in.

8D489EBE-D442-4D54-9919-6B83D6732891.jpg

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15 hours ago, Cloud in the Wind said:

Hey Rob, thanks for the interest.  It looks like your building Italeri's version.  It's coming along nice.  Most of my model building is in paper card models - in fact mostly unmanned satellites and spacecraft.  I found a designer who designed an RQ-170 in 72nd scale, probably modeled off of Italeri's.  His kit can be found as a free download via paper-replika.com and on the designers BlogSpot.  Anyhow its easier to upscale a paper model than a plastic so that's what I've been working on.  However, his design wasn't as I'mcoming along as easily as I'd liked and the increase in size was creating some blurred graphics.  So I began to redesign the model on my own.  I've gathered graphics from youtube videos and images - trying hard to stay away from the Iranians as I'm not convinced that what they're showing is an unaltered craft.  I've gotten enough that I can feel more comfortable about the position of most parts and graphics. 

 

By the way, a reply by a fellow member and a digital caliper have confirmed a 1" height or approximately 100pt Font in Arial Black or 2.5pt in 1/48th scale.  Arial black looks best when printed on my setup.  I've yet to find the font type, but that's fine, the scale and printer settings limits what looks good in real life.

 

I'm still tweaking the inner support structure, wing spars a plenty.  This is an early prototype.  Obviously I'm savings on details of other exterior parts and ink until I've things better dialed in.

 

Very interesting to learn about a paper model of the RQ-170, I never thought of that. And a smart idea to scale it up.

 

One inch sounds like a good size for general stencils. For 'No step' markings I would expect something larger though.

 

I'm using the photogrammetry analysis of 'Truthdowsing' and Bjørn Holst Jespersen as a basis for my conversion of the Italeri diecast. I'm adding more details that I find in photos. The latest 'discovery' is that I need to move the 'humps' back a bit. In terms of markings I haven't found much so far.

 

A nice find was this short clip of one in flight, at 23:00, with a strange 'hollow' sound:

 

 

Rob

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FWIW, I've just checked out the NO STEP markings on a Hasegawa F-15 and a Kinetic F/A-18. Both scale out to 1 inch high (1/48 inch or .0208333 inch or one third of 1/16 inch in 1:48 scale). As for the typeface, at that size most any sans serif will look okay as long as the stroke width isn't too wide.

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