PMDG 737NGX Liveries

[airliner_75 0]

Norwegian livreries :)

[Chock 17,770]

The trains should really have side walls or something

Apparently the security on the trains has been improved somewhat after Boeing found that was happening, so I think it occurs a lot less now. Another interesting fact about those trains and the 737, is that when Boeing first proposed tansporting the 737's fuselage on that 1,800 mile journey by rail, they very sensibly decided to build a wooden mock up of a 737 and place it on one of those (89 foot long) custom-built railcars in order to make a dummy run to ensure it would be able to make the trip without the fuselage being damaged when going through tunnels and around tight turns. The mock up made it all the way to Renton just fine, until it actually went into the Boeing compound, where they discovered that they would need to remove a couple of feet off one of the factory buildings at Renton in order for the trains to fit past it!Video of some 737s on a train:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3MBXMLv0BgAl

[theshack440 22]

They make them at Renton as you say (although at that point they are not always completely finished), then they are flown over to Boeing Field (where they used to be made years ago) in their zinc coating. They are then painted, apart from the tail fin and rudder and (sometimes) winglets (if fitted) which are already painted before they are put onto the airframe at Renton because the paint adds to their weight, so they have to be balanced when they are fitted. The average paint job on a 737 adds roughly 300lbs extra weight in total although that actually depends to some extent on how fancy the paint job is because masked paint patterns on intricate liveries are oversprayed over a base coat, so simple liveries will weigh quite a lot less.After they have been painted and that paint has dried and hardened, they may also then be flown either back to Wichita (where the fuselages originally come from by train after having been made there), or over to Georgetown, depending on what needs doing to them for the final customer. At Wichita they fit out military variants (C40, MMA etc) with any fancy Air Force or Navy bits and pieces they need, whereas at Georgetown they fit stuff such as extra fuel tanks on the BBJ variants and satellite communications equipment. This is because these things are supplemental type fittings that require different certification.An interesting thing to note, is that several 737 fuselages have had to have bullet holes in them patched up after arriving at Renton from Wichita, because people take potshots at them as they travel through the remote countryside on the trains.Al

Wow, that's a lot of information. Certainly enough for me to follow when I do my mock 737 delivery. Thank you for the explanation. That whole train thing is crazy; I am glad to see that Boeing has taken extra precautions. Regards

[FS Hub 132]

Scandinavian Airlines, SAS.

[badderjet 181]

The average paint job on a 737 adds roughly 300lbs extra weight in total although that actually depends to some extent on how fancy the paint job is because masked paint patterns on intricate liveries are oversprayed over a base coat, so simple liveries will weigh quite a lot less.

You really know a whole lot of detailed stuff man, I enjoy reading many of your posts. Actually, do you know how they paint gradients? I'm being curious. As you said, the masking I have seen in videos, but that just seems to be useful to get the outline of a particular shape. Then again, I don't even know how any other painters do gradients (like on cars etc)... :(

[Chock 17,770]

Actually, do you know how they paint gradients?

A lot of the time the fancier stuff on aircraft liveries is actually decals (i.e. stickers) as opposed to paint. You can't always do that though, some areas where the decal would be splashed with fuel or lubricants or vulnerable to damage in other ways would prevent it from happening, but where many logos with gradients are concerned, it is decals that are used because of the need to be consistent in appearance. The carrier film they are on is obviously fairly specialist though, since they have to withstand extremes of temperature, expansion and contraction when the aircraft skin stretches as it is pressurised, and of course high winds.Here's a video of decals being applied to a 737 NG:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxxv9ETOmXIAl

[theshack440 22]

A lot of the time the fancier stuff on aircraft liveries is actually decals (i.e. stickers) as opposed to paint. You can't always do that though, some areas where the decal would be splashed with fuel or lubricants or vulnerable to damage in other ways would prevent it from happening, but where many logos with gradients are concerned, it is decals that are used because of the need to be consistent in appearance. The carrier film they are on is obviously fairly specialist though, since they have to withstand extremes of temperature, expansion and contraction when the aircraft skin stretches as it is pressurised, and of course high winds.Here's a video of decals being applied to a 737 NG:

Al

So would an airplane like the Southwest "Florida One" be mostly decals (aside from the tail, winglets, and obviously the white base color)? And if so, how do airlines/painters choose whether or not to use decals? Is it just a question of complexity; meaning if the livery in question is too intricate [to paint] they will use decals?Thanks, I really appreciate the wealth information that you have; it is all very interesting!Here's the Florida one:

[kcflyer13 0]

So would an airplane like the Southwest "Florida One" be mostly decals (aside from the tail, winglets, and obviously the white base color)? And if so, how do airlines/painters choose whether or not to use decals? Is it just a question of complexity; meaning if the livery in question is too intricate [to paint] they will use decals?Thanks, I really appreciate the wealth information that you have; it is all very interesting!Here's the Florida one:

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=zKnsyYbfC60

[simon747 186]

Regular SAS -600 or -700, or -800 or this one which looks cool in the -800 and of course the -600 at some stage too...

[Chock 17,770]

how do airlines/painters choose whether or not to use decals? Is it just a question of complexity; meaning if the livery in question is too intricate [to paint] they will use decals?

It's more a question of what is practical under the individual circumstances. If you watch that video of the decals being applied, there are two things to notice in particular, first up, it has a lot of logos on the side for various sponsors that are pretty small, second, you can see that applying decals is pretty tricky and time-consuming if they are going on a lot of areas of the aeroplane, since an aeroplane fuselage is not a flat surface and there are critical parts of the airframe that cannot be covered up. But applying stickers is still not as time-consuming as a paint job and the only thing you really have to be worried about is to ensure that the surface is clean.So other considerations include things such as, 'how long do you want your design to be on the aeroplane?' and 'how old is the aeroplane?' Stickers can be removed, the plane washed down and then either painted or be thoroughly cleaned and have more stickers put on it, whereas to repaint an aeroplane, you have to completely strip it down to the bare metal, re-prime it, spray on a base coat and then paint the design. So if the aeroplane is not new, it will be out of service a lot longer for a repaint than for a clean-down and to have some stickers put on it. Needless to say, if the plane is new, painting is a more practical proposition, but since aircraft have to be stripped of their paint right down to the bare metal and checked for fatigue, there are opportunities where painting is practical even on older aircraft. Those fatigue checks can sometimes be done on painted aeroplanes though, since they are made using an ultrasonic phased array which detects 'echoes' that might indicate a fatigue crack which needs attention. Typically that check is made every three years and done when the paint is indeed stripped off, but it is more often based on the number of pressurisation cycles an airliner has, although it is hoped that composite construction materials will making that sort of check less necessary. So, even if it is practical to paint a design, it might still be put on using stickers if it is something like promoting the World Cup or a Formula One race, because no airline wants to fly around with an aeroplane promoting an event which happened two years ago.Many aircraft are leased rather than owned by the airline, although those leases can be long term, so even leased aircraft get painted up in airline liveries, but if they are on a short term lease, stickers rather than paint may be a better solution.With all those things in mind, like everything that is ever designed, the decision is therefore 'what will do the job best?', and that includes not only producing the livery, but actually designing it in the first place. So you will notice that a lot of airline logos and paint schemes are made up of flat areas of colour, which (if the designer is any good - some aren't!) will be a conscious decision by the scheme's designer in order that they can be painted and masked with relative ease.Spray paint masks are easy to produce, since they are simply created from an adhesive masking film on a backing that is on a roll; the design is cut out of the film, but not cut through the backing. With that method, a design will be repro'd as a scalable vector graphic EPS file (typically using Adobe Illustrator). That graphic file is then sent to a CNC plotter, which has a blade where the tip is pointing straight down and sitting right on the surface of the film. The blade can rotate through 360 degrees and sits on a movable track which will allow it to move up/down, and left/right and forward/backward. This means the computer of the CNC plotter can send the postscript vector data of the EPS file to the blade, and move it to cut out complex masks by simply rotating the blade and changing its position as the adhesive film comes off the roll off onto a flat bed. To use that mask, all you have to do is stick the entire thing on the aeroplane, then 'weed' bits out where you want the paint to go, and then spray.Stickers on the other hand are simply a 'jigsaw' of numbered pieces that are matched up and stuck on the aeroplane following a diagram in much the same way as a 48-sheet billboard poster is put up, and the only thing you have to do that is tricky as far as fitting them goes, is to cut out bits where the windows and vents are and watch out for air bubbles, although if there are things such as pitot probes and static ports, it will make things somewhat more critical and might mean painting is a better choice, so there are occasions where a combination of stickers and paint will be used.When that happens, if the artwork for the sticker has to match a painted area, the artwork's colours for the stickers is created by using what is known as 'Pantone References'. This is where specifically numbered colour inks are used (Pantone Colours) to reproduce the artwork. For example, you will no doubt have seen the famous yellow McDonalds 'Golden Arches' logo; that yellow colour is a Pantone colour (Pantone 109C). This is so it can be consistently reproduced all around the world and the yellow will always be the same whether you go to a McDonalds in Texas or Timbuktu (actually that's not entirely true, there is one place in the world where the golden arches logo is not yellow - the Avenue de Champs Elysee in Paris - because you are only allowed white lighting on that road). But anyway...Most airline logos are designed using Pantone reference colours for that same reason, and it is also one of the reasons why that youtube clip where there where you can see a lot of sponsor logos being placed on the side of a 737 was done using stickers, since all those companies would want the colours of their logos to be correctly reproduced, which is a hell of a lot easier to do using printing rather than painting.God that was boring, wasn't it? :( Al

[pedrovazua 0]

Dear Developers,From the facebook link on the first page on this liveries thread, I can see two enormous gaps in the livery selection: Air Europa from Spain and SAS/Norwegian in Scandinavia both with very important fleets in Europe and representing on their own 2 important regions in Europe with lots of potential buyers. Do you have plans to include these 2 liveries in your default product?

[Mac_Paint 35]

Yes.Pete Mac PaintPMDG Graphic Designer

Dear Developers,From the facebook link on the first page on this liveries thread, I can see two enormous gaps in the livery selection: Air Europa from Spain and SAS/Norwegian in Scandinavia both with very important fleets in Europe and representing on their own 2 important regions in Europe with lots of potential buyers. Do you have plans to include these 2 liveries in your default product?

Yes. Will be available for download once the liveries go live.Pete Mac PaintPMDG Graphic Designer

[flyboycjs 1]

Have things begun to slow down around the forum?

[flyerboy 114]

Seems like it. Not much communication at the moment - devs hard at work :-), and perhaps people are starting realize whining and groaning will not make the plane come any faster.

[caxico08 0]

Hi guysWhat would be nice are some South African liveries and also a private BBJKim Barreto