Proud to be American Flag Red !

As you probably know, many of the Link Trainers had flag stripes on the rudder.  Here is a trainer restored by Ed Link’s folks; Ed donated trainer No. 85 built in 1941 to Melbourne, Florida’s Airport Museum. 

Ed Link donated trainer No. 85 to Melbourne, FL Airport Museum.

After two coats of sealer, a coat of UV protection, and two coats of butyrate white dope, we are finally ready to put the finish color on our C-3 trainer. 

C-3 ready for finish color.

We thought picking red would be easy, but there are lots of reds.  I asked Rick, which one looked most like American Flag red.  Rick is a researcher – he dived in and got this great answer.

In RGB color space, American flag red is hex #b22234; it is composed of 69.8% red, 13.3% green and 20.4% blue.  In CMYK color space, it is 0% cyan, 80.9% magenta, 70l/*% yellow and 30.2% black.  It has a hue angle of 352.5 degrees, a saturation of 67.9% and a lightness of 41.6%. 

American flag red color space.
Butyrate red dopes.

We went with Tennessee Red.