When I first started selling Foxbats in Australia, one of the immediate needs was to organise vinyl adhesive decals for the aircraft.

Apart from the mandatory registration numbers/letters and fuel type(s), there were a whole lot more I wanted to stick on the aircraft to ensure there was no doubt as to where you could push, pull, stand, what quantity of fuel you could fill etc etc. The factory necessarily supplied the minimum required stickers but were a bit limited in that these had to apply to each country they served – as you can imagine, every nationality has their own way of marking particular aspects of the aircraft, and Australia is certainly no exception! An example is the passenger warning sticker, which is slightly different in the UK, USA and Australia.

So I looked in the yellow pages (Remember them? They were what we used before the internet…) and asked around. And I ended up approaching Business Image Graphics, in Southport, south east Queensland, near where I was based at the time. Andrew Cripps, the owner was quite candid: ‘I’ve never made decals for an aircraft before’. But he was more than willing to start. And after a few discussions about outside use (ultraviolet and other weather resistance), sizes and colours, he produced the first batch for the first Foxbat I sold in Australia – 24-4114, and my original demonstrator, 24-4163, the aircraft I helped build in the UK.

That was in 2004 and the rest (at least the last 10 years) as they say is history. Andrew now knows the requirements so well I no longer have to send him graphic (!!) details of each set – just the registrations – and he does the rest. He’s now supplied all the decals for the 130 or so Foxbats and 55-ish SportStars in Australia, as well as for a few other aircraft I have imported both for myself and others.

It’s great to see older Foxbats with registrations numbers/letters as black (or white) as the day they were delivered and they are a great testimony to Andrew and his aim to provide a high quality decal which does the job.

Andrew’s website is: http://www.quickerstickers.com.au and you can also contact him by phone on 07 5503 0282 or by email at: bigraphics@optusnet.com.au