AA's first 77W spotted at Paine Field; new livery speculation
 

According to KPAE, American's First 77W was spotted on the flightline yesterday.

https://twitter.com/Sabian404/status.../photo/1/large

but I don't understand why the front section of the unpainted airframe is grey instead of green like all the other unpainted 77W photos.

and it doesn't look like AA's own picture on facebook from end of last month.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.n...89698185_n.jpg

Gosh, I sure hope not. I am not a fan of that color unless it's on a military aircraft.

Could this just be the primer of sorts for the actual paint?

Let's see how many posts we can get speculating as to why it's that color. My contribution: when they went to the paint store, they forgot to pick up some of those wooden paint stirrers, so they had to stir the paint with AA coffee stirrers, which didn't really do the trick, so, not being properly stirred, the paint applied more like battleship grey than standard AA silver. Of course that's just speculation; I could be wrong.

I'm betting (hoping) it's a primer waiting for the silver top coat since the 787 on Boeing's site shows a silver bird.

http://www.newairplane.com/787/whos_flying/#/AAL

They don't use a primer on their planes (at least not the silver part) but that may be changing:

http://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/2012...-paint-scheme/

^ I hope you're right. That is beautiful.

Perhaps it's skin is more composite, and they may have to paint on the shiny silver instead of polish aluminum.

I like it, looks like a warbird. I must say, I was a fan of the AA livery for a while, but it is getting a tad bit tired. I like that dark grey. Also, now for exotic cars, you have to pay a lot extra to get a similar look.

Like: http://www.bmwblog.com/2009/10/01/bm...grey-metallic/
BMW charges some $5,000 for this paint job

Also available on Benz SLS, Lamborghini, etc.

I'm just confused cause I've been following that site for a while waiting for AA 77W to appear. And for as long as I can remember every plane was first seen in its primer state (like this one for Philippine airline spotted yesterday http://paineairport.com/kpae5493.htm) then flown to Portland for painting then flown back to Paine looking all colorful. And those plane spotters at Paine Field are good. They don't usually miss big events like paint flight, b1, c1, customer flight, delivery, etc.

It's been about 20 days since AA's fb picture until yesterday. Could that birdie really be painted during the time? Looks like an american flag on the gray airframe. I guess this isn't final cause I'd expect a big "American" painted.

The green is a protective coating. Underneath, the unpolished aluminum is a dull grey. In a camera phone photo taken on a cloudy day, I personally can't tell the difference between dull grey aluminum vs grey paint.

No way would they remove the protective green coating and then roll the plane outdoors so that the aluminum could corrode; I doubt that's bare unpolished aluminum in the photo.

Bare aluminium will passivate an oxide layer whether or not it's polished... which isn't going to easily corrode.

Boeing does not paint all aircraft in Portland, they also paint them at Paine Field. They have been painting some 787's in Fort Worth TX.

A new photo posted on airliners.net and reposted on TB proves you are correct:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sabian404/8092938824/

It is white or light-grey paint.

Actually, it is older livery scheme and there will be no more old colour scheme.

I am really hope they will repaint into a brand new livery scheme.

All I can say is shades of A300-600R! (I hope not, but think it may well be.)


And, don't forget the 787-923 renditions we have been seeing:

Just out of interest...how do we know (for sure) that the plane in the picture(s) belongs to AA?

What suprises me is that people on FT, but also Airliners.net complain that the livery might disappear. Why not make a new start with American coming out of Ch11 with a new fleet-wide livery that doesn't need to be polished?

This year the livery is 45 years old and definately a classic, but American needs to draw a line under its past and look to the future and introduce "The New American" with a fuel efficient, modern fleet and state-of-the-art cabin product as introduced on the 777-300ER.

Oh and Mr Horton, I have recently graduated and open for an entry-level position at AMR. ;)

On the door at the front landing gear 7LA is mentioned, which indicates the fleet-number of the aircraft. The same 7LA is mentioned on this website:
http://rzjets.net/aircraft/?reg=285997

May as well document the new aircraft for those of us who might care:

Registration: N717AN
Fleet number: 7LA
Constructor number: 31543
Type: Boeing 777-323ER
Engines: GE-90-115B1
Built for: American Airlines
Delivery scheduled: Nov 2012

Given the renditions of the 787, I am still thinking grey is the new colour scheme. Better fonts in the titles than used on the A300, but I think we'll see this for newer aircraft.

We have yet another one for you guys.

Here they are:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sabian404/8095002594/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sabian404/8094996835/

That's reminded me about a brand new livery scheme. Here is the link:

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...238F67F92E49FB

Shhh...it is surprised. Keep be quietly.

Or this beauty:

http://campsite-studio.com/2012/10/e...ican-airlines/

The first photo you link confirms it's N-717AN

I'm curious to see any new livery that may appear!

Here's another photo from that photostream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sabian4...ream/lightbox/

quite: http://www.flickr.com/photos/perspec...hy/3500533571/

Wouldn't that be amazing! :D

Definitely a new livery scheme. gray fuselage and white tail fin. I wonder how long AA will keep the lid on the new livery. I mean they gotta realize there are guys just lurking around Paine Field to snap the first shot of their new livery to post online. reality distortion field doesn't work here. Or do they?

As much as I'm curious to see if there will be a new livery, the paint on this 77W could just indicate an adaptation of the current livery. If you look at the tail section of the AB6 in the photo I linked above, the line of paint extending from the tail on the 77W seems to mimic the paint scheme seen on the AB6 sans the polished aluminium.

I hope I'm wrong!

Looks like you add the USAir tail paint and name and you've got it. Frightening. Something has to be up. The tails go down the line painted.

Reminded me of Alaska.

Yes something is up, but it is not the tail that goes down the line painted, it is the rudder because it must be balanced and the paint can upset that.

Why does it have so few windows between doors 1 and 2, total of nine?
Looks like the F cabin will have three windows per row, but the small J cabin in front of door 2 will only have three windows for two rows. Yuck.
Looking at some pix of other 777-300s: BA and EK have 14 windows between doors 1 & 2, and CX and AF have 13.

That is American Apparel Airways. Uniforms would get cheaper and the flight attendants would be underage.

Whatever that tail is boys it is going to be different. RIP shiny metal birds I will miss thee.

I'm not certain, but it looks to me like ductwork runs along row 3 (first row of J), row 4 has windows and then the remaining space ahead of the 2L door will be the accessible lav. Row 3 may not have much of a view, but looks desirable nonetheless.

Nope, that's a later A300, after they decided to change the livery to mostly silver. Original, iirc, were as depicted - light grey all over.

The white tail is - interesting, to say the least.

two more pictures of American Airlines N717AN on the flightline.
 

Is that really a white tail? Or is it some sort of protective shrink-wrap?

Look closely... the tail section isn't completely white. It looks like there's some cutouts under the horizontal stabilizer that are grey that make the white look like shrink-wrap. This would make sense if the tail (or at least rudder) have already been painted and they're trying to keep it under "wraps". I made a funny.

http://paineairport.com/images/kpae8592.jpg

I'm hoping they just haven't yet applied the chrome paint and exact same classic livery. Update the inside if you must, but keep the blue. You should know this is coming from someone who's car has a mostly navy blue interior.

This is hot! Rooting for this one!

IMO, it makes AA look like a subsidiary of Aeroflop.

In related news, AA has ordered an additional 77W for a total of 14.

Source: 10-Q filed this morning.

I was hoping that too, but they have applied the registration number and equipment codes already. That means that gray is the base coat we are going to see.