This past Friday found me painting with the Minnesota Chapter of the 99s! The 99s have a tradition of helping out in their community and one thing they do is paint compass roses at local airports.
Starting back in the 1930s, compass roses were painted on runways to identify the airport and the directions on the compass for pilots flying overhead. During WWII they were all painted over (13,000 or so of them), so that enemy airplanes would not find their way. But after the war they were all repainted. 99s chapters around the USA have been painting compass roses at their local airports for over 50 years!
The MN Chapter has a couple compass roses scheduled for painting this summer and the first one was at the Red Wing Airport. Its was a beautiful day and a great drive down to Red Wing (I drove my car, but others flew their airplane). We started at 8am and finished a little before 2pm and the rain. We even had pizza delivered to the runway! We taped, painted the first coat (a smurf blue color), painted the second coat, taped for the second color (white), painted the first coat, painted the second coat, removed the tape, did a little touching up, and finally cleaned up! I had a great time, despite getting sunburn, blisters, a bit sore-last time I painted was about 8 years ago and that was watercolors! and getting splattered a bit with paint. FYI…the middle design on the compass rose is the 99 logo, which was created by the Tiffany stores.
