United-Continental merger

[BlueSky]

Forgive me for splitting this part off my earlier post but I found more pics to continue the saga of N671MC (see original post on page 1).

I guess it means the Continental BBQ pit plane will be easy to modify

If CO had taken over DL, I guess that's where Platinum Moodallion would have ended up. In case you're wondering, PM was DL's entry a few years back in Atlanta's traditional Cow Parade. Hard to see in this pic but she's wearing an aviator's leather helmet and goggles.

Maybe these branded items are more common then I thought. DL also has a Mini:

New stuff...

Some of 671MC's sisters weren't so lucky...here are 672MC and 673MC parked in desert storage at Mojave Airport.

[CubsFanBudMan]

No fear here. Ignorance was bliss, but thanks to your maintenance info, BlueSky, I feel just as confident if not moreso than I did a few hours ago (much of which was spent on airliners.net as Buc predicted), when I didn't give much thought to planes' actual ages. Thanks for sharing. That heavy maintenance is serious stuff.

(And I find the desert graveyard fascinating.)

[Mingjai]

As for the age of NW's planes...well, I started with TranStar in 1986 and one of our DC-9-50s was N671MC. She was delivered to Swissair in 1976 under registration HB-ISR...

* * *

So yeah...some of NW/DL's birds have some age on them.

I remember few years back when American had their fleet of MD-80s grounded, all the folks at NW were chill because they were flying older DC-9s, and had not purchased any of "newer" MD-80s (originally conceived as the 80 series of DC-9). Here in the Twin Cities, you can always tell when a DC-9 flies over.

[BlueSky]

No fear here. Ignorance was bliss, but thanks to your maintenance info, BlueSky, I feel just as confident if not moreso than I did a few hours ago (much of which was spent on airliners.net as Buc predicted), when I didn't give much thought to planes' actual ages. Thanks for sharing. That heavy maintenance is serious stuff.

(And I find the desert graveyard fascinating.)

As do I. When I transferred from San Jose to AA's headquarters in Fort Worth in 1991, I was driving across the desert and far off on the horizon was this odd little sparkle. It grew larger and larger over the next hour and had me puzzled until I finally got close enough to tell what it was: "The Great Silver Fleet" as it was once known. Eastern had ceased operations in January that year and what must have been every last one of their planes was parked out there, packed in tight to save space. Their fuselages were bare metal (like American) and what I'd been watching was the sun glinting off all that metal. I pulled over and took a long look, as every airline employee should, especially the leadership, because that's the end result of incompetence and bad customer service and awful labor relations.

It was a sobering sight, to see the remains of what was once a proud airline with origins this far in the past:

Boneyards make for interesting photography too. These are B-52s:

Troy Paiva has an amazing site and he has a whole gallery of aircraft boneyard stuff. He uses some eerie lighting effects and the results are pretty cool:

Finally, boneyards also offer some insight into airline economics. This appears to be a perfectly good 767 (built in 1984) but for Air Canada it's better to park it than fly it.

Okay, and apologies for hijacking the thread, who likes the new United-cum-Continental look and who wishes they'd done something different (fire away with concepts...). Right now it reminds me of one of those short-term deals where there's a takeover and they just slap the new name on the old paint, like this BAe-146 that wouldn't have PSA's smile on the nose for much longer.

[dfwabel]

FYI, FlyerTalk has 31 United pages and 13 Contintntal pages just about the new livery which they plan to have. I thought that looking at the DAL/NWA merger was bad, but this has more early people posting than even that one did.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/continental-onepass/1080907-uniteds-name-continentals-logo-livery-used-post-merger.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-mileage-plus/1080900-united-adopt-co-globe-logo-livery-lets-fly-together.html

[BeerMe]

Boneyards make for interesting photography too. These are B-52s:

I love this photo. Also I have only been on a plane four times in my life. After saying that I have learned more in this thread than I would have ever expected to learn.

[BlueSky]

Boneyards make for interesting photography too. These are B-52s:

I love this photo. Also I have only been on a plane four times in my life. After saying that I have learned more in this thread than I would have ever expected to learn.

Good! Aviation is an amazing industry. Not what it used to be, but hey, what is? If you have any questions about any part of it, let me know. As I said, I love this stuff.

And BTW, I posted a pic of an Eastern DC-3 earlier. The type entered service with American in June 1936. This magnificently restored example, the Flagship Knoxville, is the centerpiece of AA's outstanding C.R. Smith Museum near DFW Airport. (If you go, look for my 'fundraiser' brick in the floor. )

But the DC-3 is a tough bird built to last. So if you'd like to fly on one, you still can...just take Buffalo Airways from Yellowknife to Hay River in Canada.

[tBBP]

Can you imagine what it must have been like boarding those older planes back in the day, with that nose-up stance? I don't know if they're still there, but the Museum of Naval Aviation back home on NAS Pensacola used to have some of these in an exhibit...they let us climb into some of those, and it was a nice, steep angle walking to the back of those. I imagine they were designed like that though to aid in liftoff.

On the other side of that spectrum is the CRJ-7 series, which can resemble a top-fuel dragster coming across the ramp:

[andrewharrington]

I did a quick drawing of a 'Ribbon-C' similar to Saul Bass's 'Ribbon U' for United. Looks good. They should have adopted United visuals and simplified it.

[Buster]

They should now call themselves UniCon.

Use a unicorn for a mascot.

I love this picture:

[neo_prankster]

I kinda liked this livery, and I'm still wondering why it got changed?

[Waffles]

From MarketWatch:

United Airlines and Continental Airlines today revealed refinements to the visual branding for the new global airline that will result from the proposed merger between the two airlines.

The new logo displays the combined company's brand name in capital letters (UNITED) in a custom sans-serif font, joined with the global mark which has represented Continental's brand image since 1991.

A corresponding update of the combined airline's aircraft livery will adopt Continental's livery, colors and design, including its blue-gold-white globe image on the tail, combined with the new-style UNITED name on the fuselage.

[Dexter Morgan]

[Top Shelf]

Much better than before, IMO.

[Waffles]

That's just wrong.

[TrueYankee26]

New typeface/ logo, the old logo had "United" in the Continental Times New Roman Font

sorry if posted before