April 10, 20224 yr Hope you enjoy these few images of a few rarely seen airline colors, shown below...thought out, dug up, and recreated by the repainters, for us...!! The images shown are in the order of the Notes, which are, of course, optional reading...🙂...! TAROM (the flag carrier of Romania) indeed has its origin as one of the oldest European airlines. Its roots can be traced back to 1920 when the French-Romanian Company for Air Navigation was launched (e.g., KLM, recognized as the world's oldest surviving airline was founded in 1919 and had started operations in 1920). TAROM was officially established, in 1954, when it acquired a fleet of Soviet a/c, so, its historical fleet was dominated by the Antonovs, Ilyushins and Tupolevs. It had also operated the classic 737s. Its current fleet mostly consists of Airbus and Boeing a/c. This livery, here, is called "Tarom Bolt". The classic TAROM logo, representing a swallow in flight, can be seen in the front fuselage of this B737-200. Air France has had a long history of inter-island flights in the Caribbean, beginning in 1947, when the route network was set up in the Caribbean using turboprops. Air France also flew into San Juan from their island locations in the Caribbean. At one time they flew B707s from Guadalupe to San Juan to Paris. This AF livery, below, (less-known and rarely-seen-here), with a length-wide blue cheatline is a rendition of the very first B737 operated by Air France in 1974, in their Caribbean operations. In 1976, following the introduction of the Concorde, all the AF aircraft (except the Caravelles) received the (now well-known) "barcode" livery scheme, an unmistakable and iconic pattern on the tail, which has been carried to the recent times. The Blue cheatline paint had lasted from 1946 to 1976. And, for the livery enthusiasts (and for the repainters...🙂...); in 2009, Air France rolled out its latest livery. The 2009 livery saw the tail slightly changed; there are now 3 blue bars running down instead of 4 previously. The bars also now curve at the bottom, reflecting the design of the logo... This is an Merpati Nusantara Airlines Boeing 737-300. This is an interesting airline...and its livery has been spotted in our SIM since the early days, on the classic 737s. Merpati is based out of Jakarta, Indonesia. It has an interesting livery too. Its (founding) mission was to become an "air bridge" linking remote areas of Indonesia and thereby helping to build the economies of such regional areas. The air bridge theme is the basis of the current Merpati logo, displayed on the tail of its aircraft. The word merpati is Indonesian for a type of the "dove" bird, also seen on this paint. And apparently, there are "two" iterations of the Merpati Airlines...the first (historic) one, founded in 1962, ceased in 2014. Then a (2nd) Merpati was relaunched in 2019 with intent to operate with more modern jetliners. Of interest, the "new" Merpati airline has on order, "40" Chinese Comac ARJ21 Regional Jets. The ARJ21 (curiously) closely resembles the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 or the MD-90 series a/c. In a previous (freeware a/c) post, I'd shown a Lufthansa Cargo Airbus A321-211 (P2F), i.e., the Passenger-to-Freighter converted version of the A321. After Lufthansa Cargo retired all its MD-11Fs in 2021, it has now acquired 12 777F freighters, similar to its joint-venture subsidiary (AeroLogic) (please see my Aerologic post). LH Cargo currently has just one A321 (P2F) in its fleet. This livery, shown here, is also the same A321-200 (P2F) type freighter for SmartLynx Airlines, which is based in Mārupe, Latvia, and operates 2 A321 (P2F)s in its fleet. The DHL (yellow) marking appears on this paint scheme, because DHL Express and SmartLynx have announced a new partnership agreement for freight operations with (their) such converted Airbus A321-200 (P2F)s. This (final) interesting LOT repaint, here (last 2 screenshots) of the B737-8 MAX model, is for the Polish Airlines in the "Proud of Poland's Independence" livery, registration SP-LVD. Thanks for your interest...!!
April 13, 20224 yr Author Thank you much, Alaska...!! Alaska, since you and pmplayer have recently posted many beautiful pictures of the Air France Concorde, the (below) fact about Air France having introduced their now-famous bar-code livery...in 1976...coincident with introduction of their Concorde, made me look back a bit here in the posts... On 4/10/2022 at 9:17 AM, P_7878 said: In 1976, following the introduction of the Concorde, all the AF aircraft (except the Caravelles) received the (now well-known) "barcode" livery scheme... First, I did find in your post "Concorde Air France LFPO/TNCM" the familiar barcode pattern on the Concorde tail, but with 4 blue-bars, as opposed to 3 blue-bars on the modern Air France fleet... (in 2009 Air France went from 4 to 3 blue bars) .... Next, more interestingly, on the Concorde post of pmplayer "Concorde on the ground", the Air France Concorde tail there shows up, not with the bar-code, but exactly what is seen above in their very first B737...a single pattern on the tail of just blue color....
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