New Lincoln Paint Facility Opens with Duncan Aviation's Most Complex Aircraft Finish Work

New Lincoln Paint Facility Opens with Duncan Aviation's Most Complex Aircraft Finish Work

Before it had a name, before anyone counted the colors, before the eyes, flies, flowers, stencils, and hand-laid details covered nearly every inch of the aircraft, N1RD was a white Citation CJ3+ with factory stripes.

Robert Duncan, Duncan Aviation Chairman Emeritus, and his wife Karen saw something else.

They saw a blank canvas.

They saw a chance to celebrate the kind of creativity Duncan Aviation is known for: bold, meticulous, a little unexpected, and executed with the kind of craftsmanship that turns an idea into something unforgettable. They saw an opportunity to challenge the team, open the doors of Duncan Aviation’s newest paint hangar with a statement, and create an aircraft that could not be mistaken for anyone else’s.

What came out of that hangar was not simply a new paint scheme. It was a 46-color, full-scale piece of flying art. The most intricate paint design Duncan Aviation has ever completed. The first aircraft painted in the company’s new 32,500-square-foot paint hangar in Lincoln, Nebraska. And, for Robert and Karen, a vivid expression of adventure, trust, pride, and fun.

Robert’s first reaction was one word.

“Wow.”

Karen’s was a question that could have served as the creative brief for the entire project.

“How outrageous can we get?”

Robert did not soften her word. He embraced it.

“This is completely outrageous. Outrageous is the word I think of every time I see the aircraft. We’ve watched a few steps during the paint process. It’s totally outrageous. It speaks to the creativity and the outstanding job that Duncan Aviation does day in and day out.”

For Robert and Karen, outrageous is not a gimmick. It is part of a much longer story. They have spent decades collecting art, meeting artists, traveling the world, and turning airplanes into conversation pieces. In 1965, on their honeymoon to Acapulco, friends painted “just married” on the side of the small Beechcraft Travel Air Robert was flying. Everywhere they stopped, people gathered, laughed, took pictures, and asked about the airplane.

Maybe, Robert says, that was the start of all this.

More than 60 years later, that same spirit is still flying. Only now, it encases a Citation CJ3+, covering it in color, movement, and eyes that seem to look back at you and flies that feel like an inside joke between the aircraft and everyone who sees it.

Karen’s explanation for the flies is simple.

“Because we’re flying.”

That is the charm of N1RD. It does not ask to be explained before it makes you smile. It is bold because Robert and Karen asked the team to be bold. It is complex because the team had the skill to make it possible. And it is powerful because, behind every color and every detail, there is a clear message about what Duncan Aviation can do when imagination and craftsmanship meet.

Where The Idea Began

“This whole process actually started two years ago,” says Lead Designer Hannah Mann. “We were all really excited to come up with something truly unique and custom, and different from their previous planes that we’ve done in the past.”

The aircraft itself began as something far quieter: a CJ3+ in a factory paint job, white with stripes, after spending its first several years in Peru. That was not going to last.

“Oh, we just couldn’t wait to make it distinctive, to make it a Duncan Aviation product, a Duncan Aviation design, a Duncan Aviation paint job,” Robert says. “We’re known for that now. This is a fifth or sixth airplane that’s had a special paint job.”

The challenge began with inspiration artwork from Robert and Karen. From there, artists and team members throughout Duncan Aviation’s Paint and Design teams were invited to submit ideas. Roughly 30 initial scheme submissions became 15 updated concepts.

Their direction was less a checklist than an invitation. Karen sums it up simply: “We want something crazy.” Robert adds, “And they know us.”

“They know our personalities,” Robert says. “They know our sense of adventure, our sense of creativity. And we want that to reflect in what we fly, because that’s what Duncan Aviation is known for. Out on the edge, trying different things, experimenting, but doing it in a first-class way.”

Completions Sales Representative Angie Coleman says the selection process reflected the Duncan’s appreciation for creativity and trust in Duncan Aviation’s team members.

“Robert and Karen really wanted to have our artists here at Duncan Aviation put their ideas in,” Coleman says. “They gave us a piece of artwork, it went to the teams to put ideas out there, and then it was narrowed down and revised from there.”

The Flies, The Eyes & The Final Design

Karen says she could have fallen in love with “6 or 8 different schemes,” but the team kept listening to the Duncan’s feedback.

“They’d bring us a number of different designs, and we’d say, ‘We like this about this one’,” Robert says.

Karen remembers one detail that kept coming forward, “Oh, we like the flies.”

Robert says the team picked up on those reactions and came back with different alternatives and different ideas. When the final concept appeared, the decision became clear.

“When we saw this one at the last meeting, everybody in the room said yes,” Karen says, “this one’s the one.”

Robert’s direction was simple, “Go for it.”

The selected concept came from Paint Master Specialist Troy Reinke, who wanted to create something unlike anything Duncan Aviation had painted before.

“I was trying to come up with something that was unique, something we’d never done, something that was eye-catching, and also something that Robert and Karen would appreciate,” Reinke says. His inspiration leaned into Mexican art and culture, a personal connection to the Duncans and their longtime ties to Puerto Vallarta.

Among the surviving details were the flies. They are small compared with the full sweep of the paint scheme, but they became part of the aircraft’s personality on the tail, nose, and nacelles. When asked why she liked the flies, Karen gave the simplest answer. “I don’t know, because we’re flying.”

The flies sit alongside another standout element: the eyes. Karen immediately saw their power in the design, saying, “The eyes are pretty amazing.”

Robert agreed that they make the aircraft impossible to ignore. “The eyes are really distinctive. They jump right out at you.”

Even during layout, those details carried weight. Karen remembers seeing the aircraft covered in numbered sections and asking, “Well, where are the eyeballs?”

The answer was number 29. “The plane was covered in numbers,” she says. “29 was the eyeballs.”

Creativity Is Contagious; From Artwork To Aircraft

Once the concept was selected, the real work began.

Reinke’s original artwork included fades, highlights, shadows, and artistic details that looked striking on paper but had to be translated into something the Paint team could actually apply to an aircraft. That is where Mann’s design work became critical.

“I took Troy’s drawing and split that out into individual shapes and pieces,” Mann says. “His original scheme had fades and highlights and shadows, and when we broke those out into individual shapes, we had to add those design elements back in. That’s where the 46 colors came from.”

Paint Team Leader Brandon Boyer says the team’s first questions were practical rather than creative. The original drawing included a lot of fades that looked good on paper but would not work the same way on an aircraft. Once the Paint and Design teams talked through the scheme and converted those fades into solid shapes, the path forward became clear.

“Once we had that, there was no fear,” Boyer says. “It was just a time concern.”

Each color added complexity. Every section had to be planned, masked, painted, unmasked, and protected with precision. Coleman says quoting and scheduling a paint job of this complexity required close coordination with the team.

“With the number of colors that we have on there, we knew that every single color was going to have to be masked and unmasked,” Coleman says. “So, we sat down with the team, went over how many labor hours this was really going to take, and where we could fit it in the schedule.”

That time concern was real, Boyer says, because N1RD’s complexity did not stop the rest of the Paint team’s work. The CJ3+ required extraordinary focus, but the team still had core aircraft moving through the shop and wanted to give those projects the same level of attention.

Planning for the CJ3+ continued in a new space built for the future. Robert wanted the Citation CJ3+ to be the first aircraft painted in Duncan Aviation’s new Lincoln paint hangar, and the team made that happen.

“I’m really proud of the way that hangar turned out, and it’s special to have this as our first paint job,” Robert says. “We’re going to keep talking about that, and we’re going to keep talking about what a modern and beautiful hangar it is, and the wonderful paint jobs that it’ll turn out over the years.”

Reinke says the new space helped support the work. “It’s bigger, it’s more open, it’s bright in there,” he says.

For Robert, the hangar tells the same story as the aircraft: growth, capability, and confidence in the people doing the work.

“It means that we’re growing and expanding and that we can paint bigger airplanes,” Robert says. “The hangar is terrific.”

In the clean, bright new space, the CJ3+ looked almost small, but the complexity of the scheme set the tone.

“We’re the premier painter of aircraft in the world as far as I’m concerned,” says Robert. “We do the best quality jobs, and we’ve got the best teams.”

Karen agrees. “Well, there aren’t many who could do that.”

Robert answers, “No, I don’t know there’s anybody (else) that could do that.”

Reinke says the design required significant layout work before paint could even begin. The team had to break the design into sections, cut stencils, and prepare the aircraft so the scheme could be applied accurately at full scale.

“With this type of scheme and this type of paint job, I absolutely can’t do this by myself,” Reinke says. “It’s going to take a whole team of guys down there to accomplish this type of paint work.”

Reinke estimated that at least 25 team members had touched the aircraft before completion, including layout, paint, project coordination, sales, design, and leadership support.

Boyer specifically credits Paint Crew Leader Trevor Reinke, who led the day-to-day paint effort, with helping keep the project moving. He helped manage progress on N1RD while the team was also supporting two or three other aircraft at the same time.

“He ran the day-to-day and did a phenomenal job,” Boyer says. “The team really stepped up and kept everything rolling.”

Reinke says he is proud of how the team handled the demanding, behind-the-scenes work required to bring the finish together. “Absolutely. I’m very proud of our team,” he says. “A project like this takes a tremendous amount of time, attention to detail, and teamwork. Much of the work that goes into creating the final product isn’t visible to those outside the project, but it’s those behind-the-scenes efforts that make a finish like this possible.”

Project Manager Tony Chipman helped coordinate communication and remove roadblocks, but he is quick to point the credit back to the team.

“I have complete trust in our team members to do their jobs,” Chipman says. “Their passion comes out in everything they do.”

A Flying Expression of the Company

For Coleman, projects with the Duncan family are especially rewarding because of the creative freedom they give the teams.

“Working with the Duncan family is the absolute best,” Coleman says. “They let our designers design, our paint teams paint. They love art, and they’re so open-minded to anything somebody might bring forward. You’ll see that in this paint scheme.”

That openness is rooted in Robert and Karen’s long relationship with art. Karen says she became immersed in art when she was young and then dragged Robert into it. Robert says years spent traveling, meeting artists, and learning from them helped turn art into a shared passion.

Although Duncan Aviation has completed many colorful and custom aircraft over the years, this one stands apart. The previous family aircraft, N1KD, used roughly 26 or 27 colors. This CJ3+ nearly doubles that count.

“It’s the most we’ve ever done,” Coleman says.

That level of detail makes the aircraft more than a paint project. It is a large-scale piece of flying art, shaped by a family’s vision and brought to life by the skill of Duncan Aviation team members.

For Reinke, the boldness of N1RD also made the aircraft especially rewarding to paint. “After painting Matterhorn White with red and blue stripes over and over, it’s refreshing to work on something this bold and unique,” he says. “Projects like this don’t come around often, and being able to step back at the end and see the finished aircraft gives you a real sense of pride and accomplishment.”

He describes the finished aircraft in three words, “Unique, colorful, and eye-catching.”

After two years of ideas, revisions, planning, layout, masking, painting, and teamwork, the reaction the team hopes for is simple.

“Jaw drop,” Reinke says.

That pride is exactly what Robert and Karen hope the finished aircraft reflects.

Robert says, “The Duncan Aviation teams … The design team, the paint team … should be really, really proud of what they’ve done. That’s probably the most important thing.”

Karen says the attention should go exactly where it belongs: “The teams should get as much attention as the airplane.”

Robert expects the airplane to do what Duncan Aviation’s aircraft have always done: Start conversations, draw cameras, and make people smile.

“I have a great big smile every time I see it,” he says. “It’ll just brighten your day when you see it. It’ll brighten everyone’s day.”

More than anything, he sees the CJ3+ as a statement about Duncan Aviation itself.

“This is just another way to showcase what Duncan Aviation is, what it’s capable of, what it loves, how much fun the company is,” Robert says. “This talks about having fun, and we do have fun at Duncan Aviation. Yeah, it’s a wonderful expression of the company.

For Duncan Aviation, the Citation CJ3+ represents a milestone in creativity and craftsmanship: Its most complex paint design to date, the first aircraft completed in Lincoln’s new paint hangar, and a vivid example of what has happened over 70 years when customers trust the team to turn inspiration into reality. Creativity truly is infectious at Duncan Aviation.