The International Cessna^® 170 Association

And I would be remiss if I didn't give you a proper welcome, Todd. Beautiful airplane!

Perhaps if you find someone that knows what Cypria Red Metallic is supposed to lo like, they would know what Chartreuse was too. I'm keen to see the shade Cessna used. If you're ever in central North Carolina for any reason, I'm based at W88 (Air Harbor in Greensboro) and teach at a flight school in Goldsboro.

Yes it does still have the original bird logo and small numbers on the tail. The small Trademark symbol (R with a circle around it) is even still there. My trim plate says 5-B-3-CE so as far as I can tell the interior is the only thing not original since it's red now.

WELCOME! And CONGRATULATIONS! (Disregard that man behind the curtain who praises green airplanes. The reason they're green is due to jealousy. Even Cessna attempted to soften-the-blow by using all sorts of crazy names other than green. They even tried calling it "French Silver" at one point...the only time they actually used the word "green" , they Welsh'd on the description! They never were ashamed to say "RED".)

N3407D wrote:Wow! Beautiful bird Joe. What do you know about the color? I'm trying to figure out what cypria red looked like but no one seems to know. I can't find a single spot on mine that's not faded into this coppery maroon color.

Did Cessna paint these with the vertical stab attached? If not, underneath it is where I would search for an original color. Otherwise buffing the lower cowl, bottom of the elevator counterweights, or bottom of the wingtips might reveal an original color. Googling "cypria red" shows that this color gets its name from a rare tulip on Cyprus which is blood red in color.

Those are great ideas Gary. I've thought about removing the stab to see if there's any paint under it. I will definitely try to buff the underside of the elevator tips and see what it looks like. I also like that you found where the name came from. If nothing else works maybe I will try to match the color to the Cyprus Tulip.

If you study the paint schemes you will quickly realize there is no area (that I can think of) that is painted and covered on the exterior. So there would be no undisturbed paint under the stabilizer.

Cessna also did not take great pains to make each side match the other in a paint scheme. Take a close, look at Dillion Barrons '54. He restored it at Cessna painted it including the miss matching side to side. Some of it he has pointed out in articles such as the square C and a round C one side to another. Others, which he showed me, I've not seen in articles.

The top of the fuselage is painted all the way back to the horizontal so if they painted before the vertical was installed there would be paint there. I'm just not sure if they did it that way. I haven't looked at mine close enough yet to tell if it's different on the left and right. Something new to look for.