Which was the first airline to have the tail colour wrap around under the fuselage?

ClassicLover · Thu Jan 10, 2019 3:30 pm

It's very common nowadays for airlines to have the tail colour continue on and wrap around underneath the fuselage.

You can see it in airlines as diverse as Joon, American Airlines, Iberia, Lufthansa, Aeroflot, Southwest, Alaska Airlines, Level, Vueling, LATAM, Avianca and more.

Which airline do we have to blame for this trend? Who was first? Was it Qantas with their 1984 livery that started all of this?

I'm just curious as to whether anyone was doing it before Qantas, as that's the earliest I can think of.

Apparently it's likely Aer Lingus will be going the same way when they introduce their refreshed livery on 17 January, so it's not going away anytime soon.

SpaceshipDC10 · Thu Jan 10, 2019 3:39 pm

Seems likely that QF was first.

N14AZ · Thu Jan 10, 2019 3:41 pm

I would have thought it was UTA.

Picture taken in 1977...

SpaceshipDC10 · Thu Jan 10, 2019 3:47 pm

N14AZ wrote:
I would have thought it was UTA.

Picture taken in 1977...

It's close but doesn't wrap around.

BoeingGuy · Thu Jan 10, 2019 3:53 pm

I would have said the Eastern hockey stick paint scheme, but that might not be what you were referring to. Those were stripes that started in the tail and continued along the fuselage.

ClassicLover · Thu Jan 10, 2019 4:22 pm

BoeingGuy wrote:
I would have said the Eastern hockey stick paint scheme, but that might not be what you were referring to. Those were stripes that started in the tail and continued along the fuselage.

I understand what you mean, but I am specifically referring to where the tail colours continue down and underneath. Love that Eastern livery though, with the white base, not the all metal, which I thought looked awful.

klm617 · Thu Jan 10, 2019 4:40 pm

Technically Braniff with their Flying Colors livery

n901wa · Thu Jan 10, 2019 4:40 pm

Northeast Airlines Yellow Bird paint job? I think it was started around 1966ish.

spacecadet · Thu Jan 10, 2019 5:28 pm

I have a book of airliners from 1982 that shows all of the world's major airline liveries; none of them exactly fit this description, although several are close and it's obvious where the influence came from. For example, USAir:

Southwest:

Of course UTA was posted earlier.

Most of these had the tail color continue down into a stripe along the bottom of the fuselage (e.g. the two airlines above).

I think what you're looking for would have to coincide with the rise in Eurowhite, when airlines first ditched stripes and cheatlines in favor of plain white. That would lead them to just chopping off the stripe that would probably have followed from the tail in the 80's.

I guess I'm saying that it's kind of an interesting question and I don't have an exact answer, but I don't think it came out of nowhere - I think it's a design that follows from these earlier examples, and just made cheaper. I'm also kind of trying to head off other replies that are going to give you more examples of stuff that isn't really what you're asking about... examples like mine that were obvious influences on this style, but not exactly what you're looking for.

I do think that Qantas doing it in 1984 is probably the leading candidate for being first, since there's only a 2 year gap between the book I have with no exact examples, and that livery's introduction.

PatrickZ80 · Thu Jan 10, 2019 5:31 pm

n901wa wrote:
Northeast Airlines Yellow Bird paint job? I think it was started around 1966ish.

Not quite the same. That one has the wrap extended all the way up to the front of the fuselage, unlike Qantas where it follows the front line of the tail.

If that Qantas design is indeed from 1984 I think that would make them the first. I found a lot of similar designs, but they were all more recent.

What does play a role is that in earlier days of aviation all tail lines had a different angle. The 707 was almost vertical while the 727 was far more flat. That made it different to use this line as a reference in a consistent paint scheme. At a certain moment the perfect angle was found and it was unified, all planes used this same angle. Therefor it became easier to use it as a reference.

SheikhDjibouti · Thu Jan 10, 2019 5:37 pm

klm617 wrote:
Technically Braniff with their Flying Colors livery

Technically no.
Firstly, this was a one-off (ok, several off), it was not the company scheme.
Secondly, it did not continue down from the tail; rather it continued along from the fuselage, and thence up the tail.
This is not pedantry; just follow your eyes, follow your eyes... (apologies to The Cure)

If you want pedantry, take your cue from...

SpaceshipDC10 wrote:
It's close but doesn't wrap around.

Now that's harsh, because the UTA scheme clearly follows the general form of the Qantas scheme (unlike Braniff).
In the end, only the OP can definitively state what criteria he had in mind. For instance along with Qantas he cited Joon.

Oh look, it doesn't wrap around completely! :rotfl:

And both AA and LATAM leave you guessing which of 50 shades of gray complete the circuit. How many others....?

So, the winner is.... Northeast's "Yellowbird" B727 from 1966, if you can accept the wrap extending along the fuselage :duck:

Personally, I'll still take UTA as the closest in spirit to what we have today; from July 1973

(Even if you continue to argue that it qualifies, the best I can come up with for Braniff N1805 Calder's Flying Colors is November 1973...)

SpaceshipDC10 · Thu Jan 10, 2019 6:39 pm

SheikhDjibouti wrote:
If you want pedantry, take your cue from...
SpaceshipDC10 wrote:
It's close but doesn't wrap around.

I take it as a compliment.

SheikhDjibouti wrote:
In the end, only the OP can definitively state what criteria he had in mind.

Already did.

ClassicLover wrote:
I understand what you mean, but I am specifically referring to where the tail colours continue down and underneath.

longhauler · Thu Jan 10, 2019 11:31 pm

SheikhDjibouti wrote:
So, the winner is.... Northeast's "Yellowbird" B727 from 1966, if you can accept the wrap extending along the fuselage

I love it when you do this!

SpaceshipDC10 · Fri Jan 11, 2019 4:54 pm

longhauler wrote:
SheikhDjibouti wrote:
So, the winner is.... Northeast's "Yellowbird" B727 from 1966, if you can accept the wrap extending along the fuselage

I love it when you do this!

Indeed, I just learned that NE was flying trans-Atlantic.

RyanairGuru · Fri Jan 11, 2019 11:45 pm

Of what you could call the first "modern" euro-white livery with tail colours continuing over the fuselage I think that was definitely Qantas.

IMHO the early euro-white liveries such as Qantas and Air France still look good today, noting that both have been tweaked several times to keep them looking fresh and contemporary. It's the recent trends towards Lufthansa (yawn), Iberia (really?) and China Eastern (wtf?) that has ruined what can be an elegant, understated deisgn.

aeromoe · Thu Jan 17, 2019 12:55 am

SpaceshipDC10 wrote:
longhauler wrote:
SheikhDjibouti wrote:
So, the winner is.... Northeast's "Yellowbird" B727 from 1966, if you can accept the wrap extending along the fuselage

I love it when you do this!

Indeed, I just learned that NE was flying trans-Atlantic.

I hope you're joking with that trans-Atlantic statement...

SpaceshipDC10 · Thu Jan 17, 2019 11:04 pm

aeromoe wrote:
Indeed, I just learned that NE was flying trans-Atlantic.

I hope you're joking with that trans-Atlantic statement...[/quote]

Of course I am. I said that because of the following statement: "So, the winner is.... Northeast's "Yellowbird" B727 from 1966" while displaying a HS-121 of UK based Northeast AL departing LHR.

Which was the first airline to have the tail colour wrap around under the fuselage?

Which was the first airline to have the tail colour wrap around under the fuselage?

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