[American Airlines (N50051)]

Yet another excellent rendition of a tail number that is in my logbook!  This is the way the airplane appeared when we originally got them, back in the late 1980's.  Not sure why they were painted grey all over, while the rest of the fleet was the famous polished aluminum.  It was, at first, quite jarring to see an AA airplane in other than its' birthday suit!  But we got used to it, and grew to like the "Grey Ghost".  It was after I got qualified on it, around the early to mid 1990's, that we stripped the grey paint from them and polished them up.  Strange to say, it was a bit odd once again, so accustomed to the grey look had we become!

I never knew for sure why the grey paint was applied in the beginning.  I have always suspected that it may have had something to do with the fact that the first 25 we got were on what amounted to a rent-a-plane deal, not unlike renting a car; as opposed to the typical long term capital lease arrangements that financed the majority of the world's airliners.  Since we could return them, had we so desired, on little more than a 30 day notice, I imagine that whoever actually owned them and rented them to us may have wanted them already painted, the better to offer them to other operators.  I suspect that the original rental deal was converted later into a long term lease, and after that it may have been more acceptable to do with them what we wanted.  The paint weighed hundreds of pounds, and in an era when olives were being removed from martinis in first class, and magazines from seatbacks in all classes, maybe they were after a bit of fuel savings. 

[American Airlines (N70072)]

Very nice rendition of my office for 9 years!