In the spring of 2015, contributor Ken Newman installed an Air Graphics custom vinyl appearance kit on his second-gen Cirrus for a field report in the May 2015 Aviation Consumer. While we liked the quality of the kit, we didn’t know how the kit would hold up over time. While less expensive and easier than a new custom paint job, the real test would be to see how the vinyl graphics would age over time. Would it fade, chip, crack or come off? What would it take to maintain? Here’s an update.
THE PROCESS – NOT FOR ALL
After seeing some cutting-edge graphics and paint work on the Generation 5 Cirrus models, Newman recognized that reworking the scheme on his SR22 would be a radical change in appearance from the plain-vanilla design that came from the factory in 2005.