Designer

I started designing special painted aircraft during my active duty time as a pilot in Fighter Bomber Wing 31 "Boelcke", now TaktLwG 31 "B". The first project was a painted fin on a Tornado aircraft for our 40th squadron anniversary back in 1997, pretty basic and finished in a weekend.

There were multiple Tornado projects for different occasions like wing anniversaries or years for Tornado in service or milestones in flying hours. After my active time, which ended in 2006, I still designed many aircraft for my wing and later on for the Airforce HQ.

After the Tornado was phased out I switched to Eurofighter "Typhoons". The first Typhoon project was still painted in airbrush technique as all Tornadoes before, but this era ended when it was suddenly changed to wrapping for all future projects.

More about the making of such a special paint job.

Professional Career

I graduated from basic flying training in Sheppard Air force Base in class 89/01.
Basic European Training on Alpha Jet in FBW 49 in Fürstenfeldbruck followed by Tornado basic traing at RAF Cottesmore.
After that I stayed my whole career in 2.nd Sqadron Fighter Bomber Wing 31 "Boelcke" at Nörvenich.
During that time I accumulated very close to 3000 flying hours on the Tornado aircraft and finished several courses like Tactical Leadership Programmes at Florennes, Flight instructor course at Jever , technicial verification flight license and last but not least Fighter Weapons Instructor course at Holloman AFB. I also served nine years as solo display pilot for our wing.