A handful of volunteers worked well into the night Wednesday to make progress on the world’s first bedazzled airplane ahead of the Country in the Park music festival.

Organizer Anastasia Long said the aircraft was initially planned to debut at this year’s California Capital Airshow in October, but the project took off when Country in the Park officials contacted her asking to display the aircraft at the event.  

“An airplane has never been bedazzled before, and I was thinking who would be the best person to do it,” Long said. “So I went looking for an airplane, found one, and started this project.”

The aircraft Long found is a GP-2 Osprey, a homebuilt aircraft that was no longer airworthy. Rather than letting the Osprey decay, Long decided to use it as inspiration and now calls it “Her Royal Flyness.” 

“In her heyday, she was able to land on water, land on land,” Long said of the Ospray. “But now she was going to be rotting in a junkyard, and instead, now she’s turning into an art piece.”

In order to have the airplane ready for Country in the Park, Long decided to space out the rhinestones on the left wing and show only one side of the Osprey. Eventually however, she plans to completely cover the entire airframe in 1.7 million rhinestones, one-by-one. 

The Osprey was white when Long first acquired it, and the first step was painting the entire airframe in hot pink. Then volunteers started gluing each rhinestone by hand, working well into the night. Long contacted Planet Rhinestone in Los Angeles and the company agreed to ship bags of rhinestones as they produced them. Long said the volunteers are using them up as fast as they are shipped.

“Planet Rhinestone helped us out tremendously,” Long said. “I placed the order, I told them it wasn’t a joke, and we went from there. The next thing I know, boxes and boxes and boxes of rhinestones start showing up at my house and we’re going through them quite quickly.”

Long, who is also president of EAA 1714, said she launched the project as a way to inspire future aviators, but also “because I can,” she said.

“This is to serve as an inspiration to literally anybody and everybody,” Long said. “A lot of people think about airplanes and they’re like when I grow up I’m going to be a pilot. There’s more to it than just being a pilot. There are mechanics, there’s air traffic controllers, there are ramp agents, there are artists and other people that think of the paint jobs.”

The project would not be possible without the volunteers, Long said, and she is grateful for all the hours they have put into the project.  

“This has been the most fun project I have ever been a part of,” Long said. “I am so grateful for everybody that helped make this happen, including my incredible team right here. Couldn’t have done it without them.”

Her Royal Flyness will be on display at Cal Expo throughout the Country in the Park festival this weekend.