Preserving History, One Airplane at a Time

Custom aircraft created to your criteria, printed on durable vinyl and precision-cut to fit any space. Can be moved and reused without worry. 

Fill out the custom questionnaire at www.wallpilot.com to create custom graphics priced from $300 for a four-foot-long print to $500 for an eight-footer. You can choose ready-to-print graphics from $99 for a four-foot print to $159 for an eight-footer.

  A little-known fact about me. I’ve built plastic model airplanes since a child! Flying KC-135s all over the world, I took thousands of pictures feeding my model plane addiction. Several digital artists asked me for those pictures over the years as a trade for model decals. These artist friends created detailed profiles from the pictures I sent them like the one below. 

Closeup of Captain JD Ramsey's GUNSMOKE 89 F-4E from the 3rd TFS which deployed to Incirlik Air Base Turkey during Desert Storm

  But plastic model airplanes are an old man’s hobby and thousands of historical images remained unused in a closet. My wife discovered another market for all of these profiles and Wall Pilot was born… on Facebook. We marketed the images on an FB page as a trial effort and were overwhelmed with requests! 

  Our business plan takes the digital profile artwork and creates vinyl airplane graphics aviation nuts can personalize. Anyone can have a custom graphic of their favorite airplanes and paint schemes, but most importantly their name and personal tail number on the aircraft. Wall Pilot can even customize the weapons loads.

  Personalization produced a bigger challenge. Ten years ago when we started down this path programmers told us a website costs over $100,000! There are literally thousands of aircraft configurations, tail numbers, and paint schemes. Automated websites were financially impractical. We found a way to do this after talking with a nationally known printer.

  New computer customization makes possible four, six and eight-foot ready-to-print airplane graphic costing under $160. Customized four, six and eight footers range form $300 to $500 as they take a lot longer to research and draw. We are capable of doing bigger profiles, as one custom asked for a 30 foot long airliner for his hanger!

  The next dilemma was which aircraft to start with? A number of friends said to begin with the really famous planes: the P-51 Mustang, F-4 Phantom II, F-15 Eagle, F-16 Falcon, F-18 Hornet and of course my KC-135 were first off the printer. Now we have literally hundreds to choose from. Wall Pilot’s artists can create just about anything! 

JG 52 Me-109G-6 used during the Defense of the Reich campaign at the end of World War II

  Our four artists have been creating aircraft profiles for decades. We’ve developed this process now into a science. Anyone can have a personalized aircraft graphic of their favorite airplanes for the walls of your home, office or hanger. If you dreamt of flying it, we can make an illustration of it with your name under the canopy, tail number, and even custom weapons loads!

Captain Mark Hasara's KC-135R Model while assigned to the 909th ARS, 18 Wing based at Kadena Air Base Okinawa Japan
MiG-21bis "Blue 20" of the Russian Far East Air Forces

The other reason I wanted to do this is share the incredible stories with aviation geeks. The Lessons from the Cockpit podcast became the vehicle for sharing the stories we are hearing from our customers, many being told for the first time. Our motto was born from this and it is:

Preserving history… one airplane at a time!

Douglas C-54 Skymaster flown by then 1Lt Gail Halvorsen, the "Berlin Candy Bomber", during the 1948-1949 Berlin Airlift
A-7E Corsair II of VA-195 Dambusters flying off the USS Kitty Hawk for a SAM Suppression mission over North Vietnam
Nakajima B5N2 KATE attack plane Commander Mitsuo Fuchida flew in during the December 7th Pearl Harbor air raid.
F-16CJ Viper nicknamed "BOB" by the Crew Chiefs blocking out the left side of the tail number's 8s deployed to Incirlik AB Turkey, November 2001

So… what airplane have you dreamt of flying, and how long can we print it for you?