US Airways will assume American in name
- Thread starter FM2436
- Start date
How can you be so clueless. Look at the pics - those are F28's, not F-100's. They were stripped as part of the US/PI merger when the PI livery was removed and the "interim" livery applied. Just another US screwup...they always thought they knew more than anyone else
Jim
Did you read my followup post, you nitwit?
I only looked at the USAir Livery. Airliners.net shows the Piedmont Livery as April 1989.
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Piedmont-Airlines/Fokker-F-28-1000-Fellowship/1007171/&sid=07ef77f475eebf23378040921bea2387
Clearly these pics were taken after the Merger, because the Tail Numbers was changed. PI operated the F-28 as tail numbers N275N up to 300 and the Empire birds were N110UR -125 I think, then USAir changed them because the 737-200's were 200 tail numbers.
The F-28 is nothing more than a speed brake with a control surface attached. We used to say - and it was true - if you can see the runway, you can land on it.
For the first few years, AA's AB6 fleet was painted gray, but eventually, AA stripped the paint and polished its AB6s. Airliners.net has photos of painted AA AB6s and photos of polished AA AB6s.
Of course, just like on the Boeings today, the composite surfaces remained painted.
LD3
Veteran
ChockJockey
Veteran
Yeah I imagine once they put the professionals to it it'd look pretty swell. One would think that by repainting only the name and logo it'd save a lot of money and time, especially over 340 craft. Does anyone know if there are any blue-top ML aircraft yet to paint? I haven't seen any in a while.
I also wonder what they'd do to the heritage/NFL/*A planes.
There's a Boeing document from more than a decade ago that examined the pros and cons of paint v polish and at the time, the results were inconclusive. Since then, fuel prices have more than quintupled and, unfortunately for labor, AA's maintenance wages have been stagnant. So paint (requiring extra fuel to carry) has to be the expensive option now, unless the aircraft polishers see large payraises.
That explains all the battleship gray paint on wings and control surfaces now, right? AA's 727s had more shiny surface area than today's partial-plastic planes. The vertical stab and rudder were even shiny.
Someone recently posted a rumour on Flyertalk that Boeing was developing a chrome-colored paint for AA's 787s. If it looks good, perhaps it could replace the flat gray paint in use now on the composite surfaces of the rest of the fleet. Here's a car that appears to be chrome-plated:
wings396
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- Aug 20, 2002
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There is a huge difference between an A/C that came without paint from the factory vs one that was stripped. I remember how bad most of the former PI A/C looked after being stripped of their paint following the merger with US. The 737-200's were horrible looking, especially since they had numerous skin repairs over the years.
Phoenix
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BoeingBoy
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- Nov 9, 2003
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Frankly I don't remember the number, nor did I pay enough attention to 700's pics to read the tail numbers but it's was only 1 or 2.
Jim
ChockJockey
Veteran
That's only one possible solution for what they could do with the US fleet if there is a merger and bare metal is not an option. Not suggesting all of them should look like this.
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