First image in gallery

[anadc4]

Have posted my first image in the gallery. It is a Panagra Douglas DC-7B, and it illustrates why I am interested in classic airliners. There were some classically elegant colour schemes back in the 1950s.

This DC-7B also illustrates the main difficulty with vintage airliners - fonts. Very few of the fonts have made the transition to digital. It means drawing from scratch or adapting available fonts to match what can be discerned from very poor photos. In the case of the DC-7B, I had just one picture of the left hand side of the plane and it was so grainy as to be almost useless.

So I had to make some assumptions. The font used for the "Pan American-Grace Airways" titles is a Pan Am font adapted from "Britannic". Used a font editing program because Pan Am font was so widely used on airlines associated with the famous airline, so I knew I would need it more than one. The use of the Pan Am font is an assumption. On the right side of the plane the font is different, with those little points still pointing aft, in other words, reversed. Think they are supposed to represent speed and would point aft on both sides.

The large Panagra titles are hand drawn. Used the stroke blending tool for the large one. The red El Inter Americano titles is a very squeezed "Brush Script" font with a hand drawn E. Yes, it was that badly painted on the original plane. The registration number is good ol' Amarillo.

The colours used are sampled from a collection of Braniff paint swatches. The colours were described as Panagra yellow and Panagra green, so I think believe them to be close. Braniff took over Panagra.

David carter

[SunDog]

Hi anadc4

Very nice profile, You are definitely right in saying that airliners in the past were more colourful This is a very nice and bright livery, Not like today's boring white with a dot of colour on the tail.

[adlabs6]

Yes a great example of these type schemes. The geometry and shapes used in these were often very classic designs.

[philliptan]

Hey Dave... finally seeing you here.

Quick question to the vets here... I can't see the attached pic... all I see is a "This User is Deeplinking to a File"... any solution?

[anadc4]

Hello Phillip,

I'll send an 800px image by email, my friend. It really was a great scheme!!

David

[Jesters-Ink]

Yeah I like that, good balance. Good looking Aircraft too.