The Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft
of Southwest® Airlines was coated with several colours to capture the Hawaiian cultural concept of Imua.
The Aerospace Coatings division of AkzoNobel has recently announced that it has applied an unique design on the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft of Southwest® Airlines in order to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the company serving the Hawaiian Islands.
The airline wanted to captured the Hawaiian cultural concept of “Imua” (which means forward) and the strength, courage and spirit of the people living in the islands. Southwest partnered with the Osaki Creative Group to develop the design and received guidance from Herman Piikea Clark, an indigenous Hawaiian artist, designer and researcher. Moreover, it turned to AkzoNobel for aerospace coatings and the expertise of its Technical Services Team.
The design features a range of stunning colours including bold blues, warm reds and a sunrise yellow, with gradients and vignettes to symbolise the transition from night to day and reflect the history of Pacific travel using the sun, the moon and stars to navigate.
The aircraft has been completed in only seventeen days by a team of up to ten painters, who employed more the 90 gallons (340 litres) of coatings comprising of sixteen different colours. The livery had been first painted black with a coat of Mica and a clearcoat to set the Mica in place. It was then sanded to give greater adhesion for the special colours that were to follow.
The painters have then applied the front design (pre-masking) and scuffed it, following with the addition of blue and purple paint along with a further coat of mica. The entire design has been further sealed with a clearcoat. The team has also blended the orange of the after-section to deliver the desired effect. For the middle section, the design blends (red to orange and purple to red) were completed at the same time.
Both the after-section and the mid-section designs also featured a further coat of Mica sealed with a clearcoat. Finally, the airplane was unmasked, scuffed down, blown off for debris, tacked and the painters applied then the final three coats of clear. In addition, on the tail it was also applied one last layer of clearcoat.
“The expertise of the team was crucial to the success of the project. The most challenging part of the project was choosing a Mica that would work with the different basecoats. We also had to develop five basecoat colours in less than our standard time, as well as an additional colour created on the spot during the customer visit. This took a huge effort from the colour development team in Troy,” has commented Mike Suhara from AkzoNobel Aerospace Coatings. “Happily, the extra effort involved was worth it. In the light of day, the airplane takes on a life of its own. The design flows and the colours make it work so well. It is amazing to see and once you learn the meaning of the symbols and what they mean to the people of Hawaii, it means something special to all of us.”