Hand Painted Aircraft
 

Mid/late 80s, and Sister and Brother-in-Law return from a holiday to the Costas to report their flight had been provided by a ropey looking operation. On a purportedly hand painted aircraft. I may have known some details at the time but memory now fails me.

Anyway, any ideas which operator and aircraft it could have been? Arrival airport would have been either Edinburgh or Glasgow. I can vaguely recall it may have been a single aircraft family business type operation flying something quite exotic. I hesitate to suggest a Caravelle but may well be wrong. Any ideas?

And I wonder if anyone else has come across similar artistry elsewhere?

Cheers

Cooch

It probably wasn't this.... :ok:

RAF banned spraying late 80's and used to roller some of the VC10's

I watched this being painted at EGNX the scheme was airbrushed on by a team of graphic artists.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....e88a365678.jpg


close up

https://cdn.airplane-pictures.net/im.../5/1304712.jpg

When working for an airline a BAE146 came into the hangar for a paint job, but unfortunately they sent the wrong one!! :)

Thanks for the replies. Now that would have really been something, going on holiday in an Il-76 😁

And I'm surprised to hear about RAF methods Nutty, it must have made your kites a bit more draggy surely. What was the philosophy behind that, cost alone? Surely a bit early for environmental concerns.

But I'm still left none the wiser. So to turn my query on it's head, can anyone advise what Caravelles were still being operated in Europe late 80s? I'm guessing all the civi Comets were gone by then.

Much obliged

Cooch

French, Italian, Danish and German ones come to mind.

Any UK charter operators?

No and never. Could your plane have been a DC9 or MD which were regular back then.

Don't think so, those wouldn't have raised much of an eyebrow back then. Of course I could just be totally wrong on this. Thanks for your efforts anyhow N707

BAC 1-11 maybe?

Altair come to mind one of the last operators I remember on the French and Italian Register. Not sure about hand painting but some were hardly re painted - remember one in a basic Air Inter colour scheme. I have a photo of F-BNKG at Luton in 1984.

Palmair BAC One-Eleven fits the bill for being family-run.

Hispania of Spain operated UK IT flight with Caravelles until 1987 - likely candidate?

Missed them from my list thought they were retired by then.

I was fortunate to make anumber of holiday flights with Palmair in the 90s. Leased aircraft 146, 737-200 and 737-500 all very well maintained and ,as far as I am aware sprayed. I believe the oldest 737 was at least 35 years old but very well kept and maintained by European Aviation.

Apologies if I'm casting aspersions on your relatives' reliability here, but a lot of folks have a tendency to exaggerate how 'rough and ready' some of the planes they've travelled on are. One example: a guy I used to work with in the chemical industry several moons ago, who travelled quite a lot, who reported that a plane he flew on from Amsterdam to Frankfurt 'had holes in the cabin you could see daylight through.' It was a Cityhopper F50. And another guy whose regular lift back from CDG was a Gill Air F100, who reported that the ATR42 they subbed it with one day was 'a 1930's thing, falling to bits.'

Again, apologies to question your story, but this is my genuine experience.

My uncle flew to somewhere in Spain with Dan-Air, Comet I think. He later claimed that cold air was blowing on to his knee from the outside for the whole flight and he'd never fly with them again. Nothing this then 14 year old could do to persuade him that any leak in the pressurised fuselage would lead to air going out - noisily - and not in and it was probably cabin air conditioning he could feel.

You could still see Caravelles of Sterling, Finnair, Minerve, Air Provence, Balair CTA, Air Charter International and more in the mid to late 80s.

Well it looks like the mystery will remain, but never mind, many thanks to all contributors.

It has however served to remind me of a dodgy flight I once took myself, a domestic flight with Aeroflot early 90s, of which I'm sure there must be a few scare stories. The Tu-134 tasked to take me from St. Petersburg up to Arkhangelsk proved to have no interior cabin lining in the forward third of the fuselage and I felt like I could have poked my finger right through the skin!

To add to the spectacle, in those days they still did separate boarding for Johnny Foreigners, and so yours trully and a Turkish businessman found ourselves escorted to adjacent seats over the wing. Of course as soon as the local plebs were allowed on board we saw that the flight was quiet and took a row each.

Upon climb out, I happened to be looking out the window to the rear and jumped in my seat as another aircraft on approach descended down over the top of us, with not many feet separation! I'll never know if he had seen us or not.

Those were the days 😬

Cooch