new POTUS redesigned 747 shown

[CYXR 257]

I prefer the current iconic livery myself. 

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/449572-trump-displays-model-air-force-one-during-meeting-with-trudeau

 

[HighBypass 2,339]

Me too, & I'm a Brit. Whilst there's red, white & blue in the new livery, it's just boring horizontal stripes..

[charliearon 3,022]

I can see that this topic is going to cause an uproar.  It's treading on thin ground now.  Keep all comments non-political.

[ckyliu 1,749]

The existing two tone livery is iconic, elegant and world famous, I see no need to change it.

The new livery looks like a mid-market 90s airline. It is already dated before it has even flown. It will blend in with all the other airliners, instead of standing out like a military or private jet. It simply doesn't convey prestige like the current livery does.

Edited June 20, 2019 by ckyliu

[Alan_A 1,650]

I didn't know until recently that Raymond Loewy's original design sketch (well, one of them - there were several variations) called for red, white and blue.

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/196025

It was the Kennedys who chose the all-blue design.

Loewy was a remarkable designer - sometimes credited as the "father of industrial design" - who was also responsible for the TWA "twin globe" logo and the classic red, white and blue 1960s United Airlines livery, as well as the GG-1 locomotive and several noteable Studebakers, including the early 1950s bullet-nose models and the Avanti.

The problem I have with the new design is that it pulls the eye downward.  Loewy's vehicle-related designs were always about forward motion, which is just part (though a big part) of what makes them superior.

Edited June 21, 2019 by Alan_A

[HighBypass 2,339]

Nice bit of history Alan, thanks for posting. Agreed.

AF1 scheme should either stay as-is, or have something more than just a stripe and a horizontal split (white top, dark blue underside). Quite rightly the United States flag and the Presidential Seal need to be displayed, but the scheme needs "something else". I'm not talking of airbrushing the flag over then entire fuselage! No, just some experimentation with shapes denoting "forward motion" as Alan mentioned.

[Mace 1,904]

Yes I prefer the "forward motion" type of look it has traditionally had -- rather than just horizontal stripes.  

Even though I like red, and crimson style red, I would rather see some variation of the baby blue and dark blue and white, something more traditional.

[lownslo 592]

The new design... isn't much of a design.  Looks staid and boring, and rather unimaginative.  The decades old original design has wonderful flair, and the colors compliment each other.

Greg 

[HighBypass 2,339]

Even the old Flying Tigers 747 livery has more presence with it's two diagonal wraps around the polished fuselage. Actually a polished metal fuselage in this day and age of composite material airliners would have more prestige 

[lownslo 592]

6 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

Even the old Flying Tigers 747 livery has more presence with it's two diagonal wraps around the polished fuselage. Actually a polished metal fuselage in this day and age of composite material airliners would have more prestige 

Polished aluminum airframes are awesome!!!  Of course, I'll feel that way for as long as I don't have to do the polishing! 

Greg

[Alan_A 1,650]

15 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

Nice bit of history Alan, thanks for posting.

You're most welcome.

Couple of additional bits of design-related trivia - according to one of my favorite books of all time (thankfully also available in a normally priced edition, though the deluxe one might be the best-printed book I've ever seen), Loewy was also responsible for the food-service carts you see on every airliner - his replacement for the old system, which involved the flight attendants handling loose boxes. His work for TWA involved a range of projects including the design of ticket folders and departure lounges, though he never did a livery for them, just the logo, which was an adaptation of the earlier, italic-typeface one.

United might be the airline with the best design history - when it came time to replace the Loewy design, they hired Saul Bass, who delivered the 70s orange-red-blue livery and the original form of the tulip logo.  Bass was also responsible for Continental's late-60s "jetstream" logo and red-gold livery as well as a bunch of logos you know, and dozens of film title sequences.

In other words, the best livery design sets a really high bar, and the new AF1 livery doesn't quite clear it.  But then, most current airliner liveries don't, either.

[lownslo 592]

28 minutes ago, Alan_A said:

But then, most current airliner liveries don't, either.

Hmmm... here's a few that could be memorable: https://www.aviationcv.com/aviation-blog/2019/top-10-special-aircraft-liveries-all-time

My fav there is the WestJet Disney Magic 737.  From a design perspective, all 10 are light years ahead of the AF1 replacement scheme... some of them actually succeeded at actually marketing their product, too!

Greg

[Alan_A 1,650]

16 minutes ago, lownslo said:

here's a few that could be memorable

They're amazing.  But the problem with the special promo ones is that they don't really carry the airline identity.  They're great as one-offs and they're fantastic to look at but I"m not totally sure they're design, at least not in the sense that a great airline logo is one of the main ways you encounter the airline's brand.

Among recent ones, I like the new American livery (didn't expect to when I first saw the drawings, but it works extremely well "live") as well as the current Southwest, which I realize is also controversial - there are fans of the old canyon blue without the name, and the even older desert gold, but I like the new one as a modernization.

Just realized that something else I dislike about the new AF1 is the type treatment on "United States of America" - it's too big.  Or maybe not big enough - if you're going to go huge, you might as well go really huge, like the Pan Am "billboard" livery that replaced the classic blue-stripe-and-globe.  The billboard is another one that's controversial but I'm OK with it - and it shows something you can do with type if you decide to rely on type and nothing else.

 

Edited June 21, 2019 by Alan_A

[Alan_A 1,650]

46 minutes ago, lownslo said:

Polished aluminum airframes are awesome!!! 

They are!  The only one I didn't like was Eastern - always preferred the hockey stick livery over white.  Was doing some research recently and found that when they shifted back to bare metal (in the late 70s), they said explicitly it was about saving fuel by removing the added weight of the white paint.  They took out a two-page magazine ad promoting it.  This was in the depth of the second 1970s fuel crisis, so it made sense as something you'd advertise.

[Snuffleupagus 327]

The current livery is awesome and like said above, iconic. Don’t change it. There is no need to. And the new design is uuuugly!