(RW) Aircraft painting, just as virtual a/c repainting, is a complex and intricate procedure. BTW, I wish to clarify, right away, that this post is about RW a/c painting in a RW a/c paint shop, and not about "WFH" repainting that our esteemed repainters (equally painstakingly) do for our benefit on their (home-based) virtual canvas, an effort, of course, by no means less praiseworthy and admirable...! The RW aircraft painting is a fascinating subject by itself. First of all, the decision by the airline to paint or polish the metal surfaces of airplanes is based on several (RW) considerations such as (1) Marketing and Branding (e.g., the classic Braniff airline comes to mind; you may see my post on it) and (2) Economics and Engineering (e.g., weight considerations, operating and maintenance cost) etc. For example, most a/c fuselages are painted white due to many such compelling factors, but who can forget those AA silver airplanes with their polished metal fuselage... (even more so, due to the incredible artistry of our master painters here...🙂...) ...?

Anyway, my interest was recently revived by particular sightings, here, of the Alaskan livery "Salmon-Thirty-Salmon" B737. I did recall the very first time Alaska Airlines brought out this unique (giant King Salmon) livery, back in 2005, on a 737-400 (N792AS). The livery was designed to celebrate the airline's unique relationship with the people and communities of Alaska and to also promote the state’s (sustainable) seafood industry. It's to be noted that "Salmon-Thirty-Salmon" is a play on words for 737 which is the type of plane the airline thus decorated first, a Boeing "Seven-Thirty-Seven". This livery currently flies mostly on the west coast (including Alaska & Hawaii). So, Alaska Airlines being headquartered in SeaTac, Washington; to the folks, here, who are local to that state, the sighting of the livery is probably more common. I do recall, though, catching sight of the livery (only) once at one of the gates of O'Hare Airport.... (if one happens to see it just once, close enough, on a RW 737, the impression remains in memory forever). Alaska Airlines' big (flying) fish was back again, later in 2012...! The carrier rolled out the next version of the Salmon livery (dubbed "Salmon-Thirty-Salmon II"), on a Boeing 737-800, this time, (see my B737-800 pictures below). 

This paint (and fish) was even bigger and better than the first, being nine feet longer, now, with fish scales on the winglets of the 738 (the 737-400 had no winglets) and a salmon (pink-colored) Alaska name (see shots below) across the fuselage (the original text color was white). It's "the most intricately painted commercial aircraft in the world," the airline news release said.... And "Today, we are proud to introduce the largest flying fish to all of Alaska and the world,"...Oh well... (Mark Boyle, a Seattle-based wildlife artist created both Salmon-Thirty-Salmon designs. You can spot the artist's name in the rear/tail sectional shots of the livery, below, under the Registration no.). A crew of eight painters worked around the clock for 27 days to paint the plane. The painters used four gallons of Mylar paint to create an iridescent sparkle over the nearly 3,500 fish scales and airbrushed more than 90 percent of the fuselage with 21 uniquely different colors. In the process, 60,480 feet of Masking tape was used...!

Next, I wish to illustrate another remarkable a/c livery pattern that's quite unmistakable.... Since the mid-1990s, Qantas has emblazoned some of its planes with remarkable designs (called "Flying Art Series", five designs, in total, I believe) meant to honor the traditional Aboriginal and indigenous Islander culture. The art is extremely colorful and eye-catching (see the images below of such designs on a 737-800 and on a 787-9). A team of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal artists helped to create these fascinating patterns on the Qantas a/c. In addition to the Qantas intl. fleet, the Boeing 737-800s also got the special makeover treatment. It is hard to miss Yananyi Dreaming on the 737-800, registered as VH-VXB, which reflected the colors around Uluru in Central Australia (3 images of the 737-800 seen below is of the identical Reg. No. VH-VXB). 

The most recent of these Qantas schemes was the Yam Dreaming livery, which was painted on the Boeing 787-9 registered as VH-ZND (see the 787-9 pictures below of identical Reg. No.). The painting captures the essence and spirit of the (culturally significant) yam plant. This striking pattern has more than 5000 white dots...! On March 2 (2018), VH-ZND 787-9, having departed the Boeing factory, flew for some 15 and a half hours and almost 7,000 nm to finally touch down at its new home, the Alice Springs Airport. Among the expectant guests waiting there to receive the a/c, was also the (original) Artist's family... “It is a privilege to welcome home this special aircraft together with Emily’s family, close to her home Country...We’re thrilled to showcase her striking artwork on our newest Dreamliner,” ...endearing stuff, indeed... (after all, nothing like a great livery to showcase the airline...) ...

Hope you enjoy this collection of pictures of these remarkable a/c paints, as much as I did, levitating them (virtually) into the blue skies...thanks, of course, to the repainters who took the time to create them...!! 

Thanks for viewing and your interest and comments...! Good flying...!!

[PMDG/iFly (738), QW (789)]

Edited June 9, 20224 yr by P_7878

Excellent set of shots mate! 😉 

Great set of shots 👍

Oh, and i see the flying fish..😅 , keep  em cold !

cheers 😉

Epic paints for sure !! .

Remarkable, P_7878 !! Btw, I believe, the Aussies also painted one or two of their 744s in the Aboriginal scheme 🙂

And these liveries are soooo easy to paint in flightsim! 🤪

Great shots...and I appreciate all the painters out there willing to take on these paints....I very rarely do specialty paints...in all honesty I'm just not a big fan generally speaking, and they are difficult to get right. 

I'm thinking you got the Aussie paints from Matt Tank...an Aussie himself and a great painter!  If not...kudo's to whomever painted those!

On 6/9/2022 at 9:19 AM, Alaska738 said:

Excellent set of shots mate! 😉 

Appreciated the comment, Alaska...! This (fun) excursion (Salmon-Thirty-Salmon and beyond) was, of course, triggered by your original post...🙂...

 

19 hours ago, pmplayer said:

Oh, and i see the flying fish...😅 , keep  em cold !

...🙂.... I recall seeing this Flying Fish, this week, in on-line images, of course, on the tarmac at KLAX...with a caption, "Fish swimming in hot LA airport summer weather...."...or something like that... (Seriously, Alaska Airline takes immense care to keep this precious cargo cold.... I read...and justifiably so, ...) ...

 

12 hours ago, johnbow72 said:

Epic paints for sure !! .

Couldn't agree more, johnb...!!

 

4 hours ago, bernd1151 said:

Remarkable, P_7878 !! Btw, I believe, the Aussies also painted one or two of their 744s in the Aboriginal scheme 🙂

Absolutely correct, bernd, I did pick them up too, but I ran out of space and time.... here....🙂...

 

3 hours ago, Steve Dra said:

And these liveries are soooo easy to paint in flightsim! 🤪

Great shots...and I appreciate all the painters out there willing to take on these paints....I very rarely do specialty paints...in all honesty I'm just not a big fan generally speaking, and they are difficult to get right. 

I'm thinking you got the Aussie paints from Matt Tank...an Aussie himself and a great painter!  If not...kudo's to whomever painted those!

...🙂...As they say it needs a painter to recognize a painter...yes, you're right...this 787-9 ""Emily Kame Kngwarreye" (Yam Dreaming) is indeed expertly done by Matt T...! As you might guess I always read you painter folks' README in full...here is what is in the Help File, "Thanks for downloading these paints, now I know most people don't read this but if they find something wrong with the paint, they have to redownload it to get this file again so haha to them. Anyways if you find something wrong with the paint, please feel free to contact..."...I got a chuckle out of it...🙂...

On the contrary, for the Yananyi Dreaming 737-800, I read, always nice to read:

"The work are very long ... +- 60h00 ... that's hard ... more 1200 layers on photoshop on the paint kit but I think are love it and make a very beautiful fly. This paint are not very conform versus original, due to some restriction on the top aircraft and some other area where the pixel are very stretched or not square size correct ! But 90 % are conform ! That's your appreciation after ! If you make a great pictures in your fly ... send me a postcart ...Thank you and Enjoy!  (sory for my bad English ... if you write me, I more like you speak in French..."....

Oh well...liked the last bit...🙂...anyway, it works for me, and thankful for both efforts...!

 

6 hours ago, P_7878 said:

...🙂...As they say it needs a painter to recognize a painter...yes, you're right...this 787-9 ""Emily Kame Kngwarreye" (Yam Dreaming) is indeed expertly done by Matt T...! As you might guess I always read you painter folks' README in full...here is what is in the Help File, "Thanks for downloading these paints, now I know most people don't read this but if they find something wrong with the paint, they have to redownload it to get this file again so haha to them. Anyways if you find something wrong with the paint, please feel free to contact..."...I got a chuckle out of it...🙂...

 

Its just that after a while....you get to know a painter's style and even what airlines he/she typically paints.  Knowing Matt @MattTank  for so long (virtually of course), I've seen and admired his work all these years...you start to make accurate assumptions when you see a paint, especially a special one. 🙂 

I've always approached painting with the mindset that I'd do it as "professionally" as I can, even if I'm offering it as freeware.  When I start a paint project on a new line of aircraft, I pick a package "style" and stick with it....almost like a "brand" so folks who follow my work can see a release screenshot and quickly identify the paint as mine. 🙂

For example: This PMDG MSFS 737 release, all my paints on flightsim.to have the main screenshot as this:  A shot of the tail at this general angle, with the same logos for PMDG, MSFS etc all in the same position (I have a template for it actually and just paste the screenshot as the bottom layer). 

All 32 of my iFly 737 paints it looked like this:

 

For the PMDG 737 in P3d....it looked like this: (at this general angle and all the other screen elements the same)

 

For the Aerosoft A330...

 

For the iFly 747BCF

You get the idea. 🙂

(ok...so maybe I was showboating a bit 😲, but I've painted so many planes for you guys over the years, and you can see that having a "style" that is consistent and unique makes it pretty easy to pick out my paints if you're looking at a screen of a bunch of paints from different artists. (the same style between projects anyway...I tend to get bored with the same style when I used it from FS2004 up to the end of FSX, so decided to change it up between projects starting with P3d.)

 

 

Edited June 10, 20224 yr by Steve Dra

On 6/10/2022 at 4:56 PM, Steve Dra said:

.... All 32 of my iFly 737 paints it looked like this: ...

Yes, Steve, ....no need to read till the end of README to find out who is the painter....🙂...

And the iFly 747 Converted Freighters repaints.... you and Brian did will remain classics...the metal ones especially...🙂....