United Airlines Retro Paint - 4 Star Friend Ship Service (+ Video)
Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 07:17AM 
Celebrating 85 years with some retro United Airlines paint on an A320
This is kinda old news, but I missed it when it was new news, and it fits nicely now after having just posted that QuickPic of the Saul Bass scheme United L-1011 a couple days ago. You might remember there was a fun poll by the AirlineReporter.com concerning the possible retro scheme United would use to celebrate their 85 birthday. It was an unofficial poll tho... the one that really counted was just for UAL employees. The orange, red and blue striped Saul Bass designed livery won the AirlineReporter poll, but in the real poll, the Friend Ship livery won out. It had been reported that the paint was gonna go on a 757, but for some reason it's on an A329 instead. I think the 757 would have looked a lot better, but I'll take what I can get.
This early 1970's livery was a big part of my younger life, and definitely one of my favorites. With my dad flying for UAL for 35 years, he flew 727's, DC-8's and the 747 in this paint, or a version very close to it. I guess technically the '4 Star' part of the livery was only around when he was flying the 747. I rode a lot of DC-10's in this paint along with the other aircraft as well. In my mind it was a good time for the airline. The change to the orange, red and blue Saul Bass livery marked a real frustration for many of us close to the airline for a variety of reasons.
Only one airplane is painted in the retro United livery for the 85th anniversary
But airlines are run in odd ways sometimes, and honestly I'm somewhat surprised there's even still an airline with the name United on it. Maybe the Continental merger will eventually bring us a real world-class airline once again... but I'm not counting on it. Either way, I'm pretty happy to see the Friend Ship paint once again, even if only on this one airplane.
Fly the Friendly Skies of United?
N475UA, the Friend Ship A320 taking off from Portland International Airport (PDX)
Reader Comments (2)
One of the best blogs we have come across so far. Keep up the spirit and enthusiasm.
darezimen e3d3fd1842 https://wowonder.vaneayoung.de/ringtettuibrel