What could a "red, white and blue" Air Force One possibly look like? With work on a new fleet of Boeing 747-8 aircraft now underway and President Trump's expressed desire to change the iconic Air Force One livery to "something more American," I decided to attempt a new design just for fun.
This turned out to be much more difficult than I imagined it would. Air Force One is one of the most recognized liveries in aviation history by one of the most respected industrial designers—Raymond Loewy. While I think elements of it look dated—particularly the blue tail "swoosh"—it's still unique and elegant. I would much prefer to see its continued use than to see a bland new livery. I humbly acknowledge my offering will fall squarely in that category for many people. As a regular visitor to Airliners.net I know how divided opinions are whenever a new livery is revealed.
So with that caveat, and with some trepidation, here it is:
My intention was to create a clean and understated design incorporating the flag, the national emblem, and elements of national symbols. In other words, something more American in red, white, and blue.
STARS & STRIPES
The tail is a Stars & Stripes motif, suggestive of the flag rather than a literal presentation of it. The red and "white" stripes represent the stripes of the flag, of course. Both colors are in two-tone for added visual interest, mirroring the two-tone blue field. It also emphasizes their nature as the stripes in the motif.
Stars are actually very tricky to not make look tacky like something straight out of the 1970s, so here they occupy the blue field of the flag motif in a subtle manner that doesn't compete with the tail's main feature—The Great Seal of the United States of America.
THE GREAT SEAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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The national emblem is of course rich with meaning and symbolism. Particularly fitting are the two symbols of statecraft: the olive branch representing peace and diplomacy and the quiver of arrows representing war and strength. It's a powerful and very American addition to the livery.
If it is feasible, painting the gold ring around the seal in highly reflective metallic paint similar to the original gold stripe would look spectacular when the sun hits it just right.
THE FLAG
It seems somewhat common on aircraft of heads of state for the flag to be placed on the tail, but I thought it would have more impact if it were placed prominently within field of view of the main door. The juxtaposition of the flag and the president conveys a certain gravitas and would allow for interesting photographic opportunities.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The text of the United States of America retains the style and appearance of the current design based on the typeface used in the original Declaration of Independence.
THE PRESIDENTIAL SEAL
The placement of the presidential seal is not ideal, unfortunately. In its current location to the left of the auxiliary exit it is slightly forward of the flag and looks unbalanced. It would be preferable if the flag were the "leading" element in the overall design. It could be placed immediately to the right of the door—that was my original plan—but then it would be bisected by the cargo door on the starboard side.
MISCELLANEOUS
One of the striking features of the current livery is the immaculately polished underbelly and it carries over to the updated design. The last feature to mention is minor and optional: to add a little "weight" to the cockpit windows and for practical purposes a black anti-glare panel was added.
CRITIQUE
The requirement to move away from "baby blue colors" to colors of the American flag presents some design challenges. The red and blue in the flag are darker and "heavier" and tend to compete with each other, unlike the colors in the current scheme. In order to keep it visually "light" the fuselage is mostly white (some will derisively say "Eurowhite").
I also wanted to avoid the current wavy line trend because it looks too casual and fanciful for a presidential aircraft in my opinion. Horizontal lines convey formality and stability. I did give in to the tail wedge trend popularized by Qantas and used by Lufthansa in their new livery. It was tempting to use cheat lines since they're so associated with state aircraft, which tend to use older, more conservative livery designs.
I'm not entirely happy with the livery, but given the limitations I have to work with this is my least bad design so far.
UPDATE
One common complaint about the current Air Force One color scheme is the aqua blue underbelly. Here is a modified Loewy version with different colors and the Great Seal of the United States on the tail.
It's not red, white, and blue, obviously. The color palette is more towards a "federal" scheme, primarily slate blue and gray. The seal probably should be made slightly smaller, like the updated design at the top of this post, but I'll have to get to it another time.
CREDIT
I would like to credit Med at Airline Empires for providing the 747-8 template that was used as the basis for this work. He has made Photoshop templates for many commercial aircraft and I highly recommend anyone interested in this sort of thing to check them out.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
This turned out to be much more difficult than I imagined it would. Air Force One is one of the most recognized liveries in aviation history by one of the most respected industrial designers—Raymond Loewy. While I think elements of it look dated—particularly the blue tail "swoosh"—it's still unique and elegant. I would much prefer to see its continued use than to see a bland new livery. I humbly acknowledge my offering will fall squarely in that category for many people. As a regular visitor to Airliners.net I know how divided opinions are whenever a new livery is revealed.
So with that caveat, and with some trepidation, here it is:
 |
| Updated November 23, 2019. See the original image here. |
My intention was to create a clean and understated design incorporating the flag, the national emblem, and elements of national symbols. In other words, something more American in red, white, and blue.
STARS & STRIPES
The tail is a Stars & Stripes motif, suggestive of the flag rather than a literal presentation of it. The red and "white" stripes represent the stripes of the flag, of course. Both colors are in two-tone for added visual interest, mirroring the two-tone blue field. It also emphasizes their nature as the stripes in the motif.
Stars are actually very tricky to not make look tacky like something straight out of the 1970s, so here they occupy the blue field of the flag motif in a subtle manner that doesn't compete with the tail's main feature—The Great Seal of the United States of America.
THE GREAT SEAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The national emblem is of course rich with meaning and symbolism. Particularly fitting are the two symbols of statecraft: the olive branch representing peace and diplomacy and the quiver of arrows representing war and strength. It's a powerful and very American addition to the livery.
If it is feasible, painting the gold ring around the seal in highly reflective metallic paint similar to the original gold stripe would look spectacular when the sun hits it just right.
THE FLAG
It seems somewhat common on aircraft of heads of state for the flag to be placed on the tail, but I thought it would have more impact if it were placed prominently within field of view of the main door. The juxtaposition of the flag and the president conveys a certain gravitas and would allow for interesting photographic opportunities.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The text of the United States of America retains the style and appearance of the current design based on the typeface used in the original Declaration of Independence.
THE PRESIDENTIAL SEAL
The placement of the presidential seal is not ideal, unfortunately. In its current location to the left of the auxiliary exit it is slightly forward of the flag and looks unbalanced. It would be preferable if the flag were the "leading" element in the overall design. It could be placed immediately to the right of the door—that was my original plan—but then it would be bisected by the cargo door on the starboard side.
MISCELLANEOUS
One of the striking features of the current livery is the immaculately polished underbelly and it carries over to the updated design. The last feature to mention is minor and optional: to add a little "weight" to the cockpit windows and for practical purposes a black anti-glare panel was added.
CRITIQUE
The requirement to move away from "baby blue colors" to colors of the American flag presents some design challenges. The red and blue in the flag are darker and "heavier" and tend to compete with each other, unlike the colors in the current scheme. In order to keep it visually "light" the fuselage is mostly white (some will derisively say "Eurowhite").
I also wanted to avoid the current wavy line trend because it looks too casual and fanciful for a presidential aircraft in my opinion. Horizontal lines convey formality and stability. I did give in to the tail wedge trend popularized by Qantas and used by Lufthansa in their new livery. It was tempting to use cheat lines since they're so associated with state aircraft, which tend to use older, more conservative livery designs.
I'm not entirely happy with the livery, but given the limitations I have to work with this is my least bad design so far.
UPDATE
One common complaint about the current Air Force One color scheme is the aqua blue underbelly. Here is a modified Loewy version with different colors and the Great Seal of the United States on the tail.
 |
| Air Force One variation based on the current livery. |
It's not red, white, and blue, obviously. The color palette is more towards a "federal" scheme, primarily slate blue and gray. The seal probably should be made slightly smaller, like the updated design at the top of this post, but I'll have to get to it another time.
 |
| Air Force One takes flight. Background image found here. |
CREDIT
I would like to credit Med at Airline Empires for providing the 747-8 template that was used as the basis for this work. He has made Photoshop templates for many commercial aircraft and I highly recommend anyone interested in this sort of thing to check them out.
excellent.
ReplyDeleteI find the third from the top in your "collection shot" to be my personal favorite.
ReplyDeleteIt definitely outclasses the livery selected by Trump.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it would look better if the dark shade towards the back of the fuselage starting at the tail would extend all the way until the nose.
Just like the old official livery, leave the plain white only until the top.
How about incorporate a bit of the old, with Trump idea of adding a Red stripe, with darker blue? Something like this (my apologies for modifying your image so sloppily) https://imgur.com/a/ILU7OgP?
ReplyDeleteOutstanding proposals, excellent work. I can only hope you've put your designs in front of your congressional representative(s). They should at least be aware that there are better liverys than the one favored by Trump. I would love to see any one or two of your designs on the next presidential transport aircraft.
ReplyDelete