AkzoNobel Aerospace Coatings celebrated half a century of supporting the ‘Jumbo’ by painting the last produced model.
Fifty years after the first flight, the last of the Boeing 747 ‘Jumbo’ jets has rolled off the production line. To celebrate the accomplishment, AkzoNobel
Powder Coatings has painted it with a unique livery – delivered to Atlas Air – symbolising the strong partnership between the aircraft manufacturer and the company.
The early planes were painted with the Aeroflex coating to protect the exterior of the wings. Furthermore, over the years, AkzoNobel increased the range of coatings emplpyed. Now, the exteriors of the last aircraft as well as its fuel tanks and interior wing structures feature the primers of the company, the Aerodur 3001/3002 Basecoat/Clearcoat system and the Eclipse topcoat for the markings.
Although the company expressed sadness for seeing production of the 747 model finally come to an end, it will however continue to support the Boeing airplanes also in the future. As a matter of fact, it has recently re-painted the first RA001, now residing in the Museum of Flight in Seattle (U.S.A.).
“The aircraft was simply immense in every sense. We used to joke that you could put over one hundred people on a job to paint a 747, and you would not be able to find them all. The wing flap canoes, for example, could accommodate two or three painters and you would never know they were there. The height of the aircraft was also a challenge. A 747 is 65ft tall at the tail, which meant you could not reach it using a standard lift, you had to have a 60ft lift to get up there. But at that height, the sensation of movement is greatly multiplied, which meant that the tip of the tail could be a weird place to be when you were painting it,” has commented Mike Suhara, one member of a team of Technical Services Consultants for AkzoNobel Aerospace Coatings.