American Allegheny 320 - Harrisburg to Lehigh Valley

[P_7878 6,650]

No, there is no actual airline called "American Allegheny"...🙂...However, there is indeed a "RW" livery that says it. Once, there was a historic U.S. airline called "Allegheny Airlines" (may not be familiar to folks outside U.S.), but with roots in 1937, it existed so till 1979 until it became USAir (duly noting no "space" between "US" and "Air") later to be renamed (with a "space" now) US Airways. US Airways must be more familiar to folks outside North America, especially so, because of Captain Sullenberger's miraculous (not a single soul lost...!) feat of ditching his (US Airways) A320 on the Hudson River. 

The Allegheny Airline (been endowed with an initial "A" really must have liked the letter "A"). It was originally founded as "AAA = All American Aviation", renamed itself first "AAA = All American Airways", then renamed "AA = Allegheny Airlines", and eventually got merged (while being US Airways) with another "AA = American Airline". So, what had started as "AA" finally (and coincidentally) resides within "AA"...🙂...The bottom line is that today's American Airline has some of the genes of the original Allegheny, which is what American Airlines recently honored, in October last year, by introducing (on one of its A321), a hybrid livery that consists of a mixture of the colors and logos of these two airlines. This "Allegheny Retro Jet" (heritage) livery recognizes and represents the airline, of the bygone era, that actually contributed to today's American brand.

The special livery (see my images) sports the (classic) Allegheny Airlines logo (and name) on the tail, and a blue stripe along the fuselage reminiscent of Allegheny's original colors (please recall also my reference to the so-called "cheat lines" or/and "speed stripes" in my JetBlue post). As I'd indicated there, one of the most common distinguishing marks of the airlines of the 1960s is this "speed stripe". As the airlines have evolved their (historic and colorful) liveries into the modern times (of bland-white fuselages...🙂...), for economic and efficiency reasons, almost all of them, first of all, got to shed their "speed stripes". These were considered "out-of-fashion"...except by a few diehards here, like yours truly...🙂... To illustrate this historical trend, I've shown, in this post, in the first 6 images below, 2 pictures each of 3 different major (and international) airlines. Please take a look to see how these (specimen) airlines have transformed their liveries.

The Allegheny Retro Jet does also have the "American" typeface on the fuselage (see my rest of images) where "ALLEGHENY" would normally appear in the original livery. So, this livery, so-to-speak, stands for the "American Allegheny" airline. BTW American already had the same livery on an A319 previously, and skipped past the A320, to its A321 for this recreation. So, my A320 is a fictitious (but nostalgic) rendition of this special (retro) livery (again, thanks to our knowledgeable (SIM) repainters, who may not be flying as much as the rest of us, but certainly know their stuff). The original Allegheny Airlines was once routinely flying over the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania, part of the Appalachian Mountain range that's quite familiar to me, from several (RW) visits, but had to wait till MSFS for virtual explorations (I waited anxiously for decades...🙂...for Orbx to migrate eastward from the (marketable and lucrative) PNW to this region, but it never happened...). 

For my flight, here, I have avoided overflight of the pesky Allegheny mountains that must have caused the original Allegheny Airlines' (Convair and DC3) pilots and pax, quite a bit of trouble and nausea (once dubbed "white-knuckle" flights especially in bad weather, so common in this region, speaking from my own driving experiences across it and its many mile-long Mountain Tunnels). Please find, below, my A320 "Allegheny Retro Jet" (also nicknamed "Vistajet"; Allegheny had called its DC9s by this name), flying on the eastern (plain) side of the Allegheny Mountains, it was once flying in the 1960's, from Harrisburg International (KMDT) in PA's State Capitol to the (ILS RWY 06) of Lehigh Valley International (KABE). I've flown over a short distance of 90 miles, at about 6,000 ft altitude (FlightAware reports altitudes for RW flights no more than 7,000 ft).

Hope you enjoy this collection of images of a (classic and combo) U.S. Retro-livery. Please also notice how 60 years have passed across my last 2 images, below...as the wheels touch down...🙂...! History surely looks good here...!

Edited March 15 by P_7878

[rmeier 473]

Great set of photos! Of course, you caught my attention with all of those retro liveries!  🙂

[pmplayer 9,500]

Beautiful set, like all the different liverys !

cheers 😉

[P_7878 6,650]

1 hour ago, rmeier said:

Great set of photos! Of course, you caught my attention with all of those retro liveries!  🙂

Thanks. ...🙂...Anyway, my JetBlue post followed your Air Canada (retro) livery...🙂...Oh well...

 

1 hour ago, pmplayer said:

Beautiful set, like all the different liverys !

cheers 😉

Appreciated the comment, pmplayer. Yes, these retro liveries are always good to look at and good fun to fly too...

Edited March 15 by P_7878

[mwilk 1,106]

Great shots. I was hired by Allegheny Airlines in Cleveland, Ohio in May of 1979. I retired from American Airlines in January of 2016 in DFW. You covered both ends of my career. Here's a picture of the cleanest Allegheny Airlines plane I ever worked. Ok, it was US Airways painted in Allegheny livery.

Edited March 15 by mwilk

[John F 2,429]

Especially enjoyed your approach and landing here in the Lehigh Valley. Dunno what happened (in your shot) to the westbound lane of Route 22 over the Lehigh River but obviously it's still standing in real life. 🙂 In the 1970s my wife and I took an Allegheny DC9 flight ABE to Boston with a stop on the way at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. That portion of the trip was basically up and down, less than 20 minutes. While on the ground in Scranton, Allegheny permitted a group of high school students to do a walk-thru of the cabin...in from the front and out down the stairs under the tail. Since we were just about the only passengers on the plane, we must have looked like celeb's in those kids' eyes. 🙂

Edited March 16 by John F

[Alaska738 8,421]

Very nice set of pics! 🙂 

[P_7878 6,650]

6 hours ago, mwilk said:

Great shots. I was hired by Allegheny Airlines in Cleveland, Ohio in May of 1979. I retired from American Airlines in January of 2016 in DFW. You covered both ends of my career. Here's a picture of the cleanest Allegheny Airlines plane I ever worked. Ok, it was US Airways painted in Allegheny livery.

Thanks, Michael. Appreciated the kind words coming from you...🙂...who experienced all these firsthand ...So, you joined Allegheny in May 1979, and Allegheny changed name to USAir in October of 1979...

Your one RW picture (above) is worth a thousand SIM pictures...And, yes, just replace the "US AIRWAYS" on the fuselage by "American" and move the typeface a little forward, and we get this new retro-livery....🙂...

Cheers...!

Edited March 16 by P_7878

[mwilk 1,106]

5 minutes ago, P_7878 said:

Thanks, Michael. Appreciated the kind words coming from you...🙂...who experienced all these firsthand ...

Your one RW picture (above) is worth a thousand SIM pictures...And, yes, just replace the "US AIRWAYS" on the fuselage by "American" and move the typeface a little forward, and we get this new retro-livery....🙂...

Cheers...!

The original heritage liveries were done on the A319's. Since they've been redone they've been moved to the A320's.

[P_7878 6,650]

5 minutes ago, mwilk said:

The original heritage liveries were done on the A319's. Since they've been redone they've been moved to the A320's.

Surely, nice to see such heritage liveries...on these Airbuses ...🙂...

[P_7878 6,650]

2 hours ago, John F said:

Especially enjoyed your approach and landing here in the Lehigh Valley. Dunno what happened (in your shot) to the westbound lane of Route 22 over the Lehigh River but obviously it's still standing in real life. 🙂 In the 1970s my wife and I took an Allegheny DC9 flight ABE to Boston with a stop on the way at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. That portion of the trip was basically up and down, less than 20 minutes. While on the ground in Scranton, Allegheny permitted a group of high school students to do a walk-thru of the cabin...in from the front and out down the stairs under the tail. Since we were just about the only passengers on the plane, we must have looked like celeb's in those kids' eyes. 🙂

Thanks, John...for RW observations from the same area...🙂...

Yes, your Route 22 Bridge over the Lehigh River, in the shot above, seems melted down and damaged ...🙂.... which btw, I am finding a lot these days in the Metropolitan areas w.r.t. buildings and structures...

Anyway, please find, below, 3 Drone pictures I took, by reversing my glidepath (i.e., heading out west along Rwy 24, opposite to my ILS Rwy 6 approach). Is the bridge I see in my first shot, below, the Route 22 bridge over the river? The image of the bridge looks imperfect, and misaligned with the extensions towards the land sides... 

In my 2nd and 3rd shots below, I've turned left i.e., south along the river...I see 2 other bridges on the river, in these 2 images, one near and another a bit further down...what are those bridges...? Do they really exist...just curious...

This post was good bit of fun. I also recall now my many (annual) trips along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, from Columbus (OH) through Pittsburgh/Harrisburg...on my way to Maryland/Washington based acquaintances...

[P_7878 6,650]

1 hour ago, Alaska738 said:

Very nice set of pics! 🙂 

Will:

Thanks very much...! Glad you liked...though it's no Boeing (737) ...🙂...

[John F 2,429]

58 minutes ago, P_7878 said:

In my 2nd and 3rd shots below, I've turned left i.e., south along the river...I see 2 other bridges on the river, in these 2 images, one near and another a bit further down...what are those bridges...? Do they really exist...just curious...

Yes, those are existing bridges. The closer one carries the more-recently constructed American Parkway. The one further south is the Union Boulevard bridge connecting Allentown and Bethlehem.

[andiflyit 454]

Wonderful shots and paints and I again prefer the retro paints. Also for Lufthansa where the current paint to me looks worse than the older paint and again worse than the retro paint.

But of course the single color blue paint saves some costs and they have a few more aircraft.

20 hours ago, P_7878 said:

Yes, your Route 22 Bridge over the Lehigh River, in the shot above, seems melted down and damaged

 

20 hours ago, P_7878 said:

I am finding a lot these days in the Metropolitan areas

The issue is very common in orthoscenery which consists of autogenerated and assembled aerial imagery. The original bridge is in the image and they cannot

take all these bridges out because they must edit all these images by hand and they cannot do that. And of course the weird bridge follows the mesh for the river. 

And than the sim places a bridge-model or an extruded bridge just beside or on top. This issue cannot be solved in such scenery as long as the scenery

is provided for large areas, no way out. Can be improved for rather small areas where a hd-scenery is created.

[P_7878 6,650]

20 hours ago, John F said:

Yes, those are existing bridges. The closer one carries the more-recently constructed American Parkway. The one further south is the Union Boulevard bridge connecting Allentown and Bethlehem.

Thanks for the information. 

BTW, John, I gather that there is construction on-going at the Route 22 Bridge over Lehigh River currently, which means, the (MSFS) shot above of this bridge (1st of my 2nd group of 3) may have some truth to it...🙂 ...On-line images do show an auxiliary road dipping down for construction traffic I guess ...

Nonetheless, the issue with cityscape "meltdown" is present, more so, recently for me, which issue is apparently not confined to Xbox but to PC users also. I hear if one turns off PG, situation improves, but I do not normally wish to leave PG off...let's see if a future update fixes it. For now, e.g., my (familiar) KORD downtown does not look like it actually is, and neither e.g., EGLL/EGLC...I'm afraid to visit there...🙂...