It’s been awhile since I put up some good airplane porn, huh? Well, let’s break that streak. Southwest has a long history of painting airplanes to look like the state flags of its biggest operation locations. Texas, Arizona, and California, for example, have them, but there’s been a gaping hole for some time . . . Illinois.

So now they’ve painted a plane to look like the state flag of Illinois. Since Southwest took over ATA’s space at Chicago/Midway, they’ve really grown like a weed, so this seems appropriate. And speaking of weed . . .

Am I the only one thinks this Eagle looks like he’s got a pot leaf in one claw while he tears through someone’s artery with his beak? Ok, maybe I am the only one. Southwest’s PR team sent this to me, and I must admit that the eagle hanging out in front of the plane is a little intimidating.

In case you wondered what the Illinois state flag actually looks like . . .

Hmm, it definitely is a little easier to see what’s going on when you see the flag. That’s not an easy one to put on to a plane, but it’s a lot better than, oh, Maryland.

How about a little airplane porn for the weekend? Horizon had to repaint all those planes formerly flying as Frontier JetExpress anyway, so they decided to have a little fun with it. Now, Oregon, Oregon St, Washington, and Washington St will all have their own painted airplanes.

Dear Horizon, any chance of a GW plane? Ok, you may not fly anywhere near my alma mater, so that’s probably too much to ask, but how about painting ones for the rest of the PAC-10? You fly to the airports nearest to Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, and USC. Ok, so you don’t fly to Phoenix or Tucson for ASU and UA, but Alaska does. I like the idea.

It’s easy for me to sit here in sunny SoCal and complain when the temps drop into the 60s during the day, but pics like these (which came from a contact at AA) help remind me how lucky I am to live here. These were taken in Tulsa on Monday after the ice storm. Yikes. Something tells me they needed to de-ice before they left.

Spirit announced its new livery today, and I’ve got some early pics for you to see. I was definitely not a fan of the old livery (it looked better before they went from the purple to black). This one is better suited for the “ultra” low cost leisure carrier that they are, I’d say, but that is still a dizzying array of colors to take in. Thoughts?

They’ve already become the official airline of the Arizona Cardinals and the Philadelphia Eagles, and now US Airways is celebrating its status as official sponsor of two other teams with special liveries. I’m guessing that pretty soon, every single plane in the US Airways fleet will be in special liveries. What is this . . . 20 of them now?

First we have my least favorite of the two. The Carolina Panthers jet just came out of the shop, and it’s pretty bland.

Next we the much better Pittsburgh Steelers bird. This one has been around for a few weeks now, I believe. While the plane does look really good, Steelers fans will be sad to note that the logo is on both the right AND left sides of the tail, unlike on the team’s helmets.

I’ll have a more in-depth story on US Airways and their attempt to fix operations in the coming days.

As you can imagine, yesterday’s post on user fees just about burned me out for the week. I spent hours on Wednesday night getting that thing together, so hopefully it made some sense by the time I posted it.

When I came time to put a post together for this morning, I just didn’t have it in me. Instead, I’ve decided to end the week with this awesome shot of a BA 747-400 departing LAX for London/Heathrow.

This pic comes from fellow PriceGrabber employee Chris Craig. You can see more of his work here. Next time I get invited to an inaugural flight, I’ll bring him along so you can actually see some high quality photos.

The rest of this week is pretty busy for me. My fiancée (yes, we’re now happily engaged) and I just closed on a house yesterday, and to top it all off, her parents are in town this weekend. So, I’m going to point to the work of others for the rest of the week.

Today, check out the excellent photography of Troy Paiva.

Pretty cool, huh? He uses some great light-painting techniques to come up with stunning shots. You can see a bunch more of his photos by clicking here.

It’s a rare and happy day when I can throw a little baseball into my posts. And today, Delta has given me good reason.

Delta announced yesterday that they’ve named one of their 757s after Hank Aaron. And not only did they name it after him, they named it “Hank Aaron 755.” Yup, that 755 is the current career home run record that Hank Aaron has held for over 30 years. How great is that?

Baseball fans know where I’m going with this one, but for those who live in a cave, let me explain a little further. This is one of those amazing baseball records that just doesn’t get broken easily. It’s not often you can find a power hitter who can sustain his level of play for so long. But after more than 30 years, the record is about to be broken by Barry Bonds, and I’d say that most people aren’t happy about this.

Bonds used steroids for years during his career. Now, steroids don’t make you a great baseball player - he certainly is that on his own - but they can give you more power. And that’s why Bonds taking this record is tainted. It should have a big asterisk in the record books when it happens. Most of the baseball-loving world isn’t happy, with the exception of the obnoxious Giants fans who think Bonds can do no wrong.

As we helplessly watch Bonds creep up on Aaron’s record, it feels like watching a car crash in slow motion. You know it’s happening and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. So you sit there with a bad taste in your mouth and try to forget about it.

So with that background you can understand why Delta’s move today is a feel-good kind of move for baseball fans all over. It’s true that there’s nothing they can do to stop it, but they can make a small statement that sends a strong message to baseball fans. They feel our pain and they wish they could help more, but this is the best they can do. Read here for more. (Photo Credit: Agustin Anaya)

Why did Delta do this? Well, Hank Aaron spent his days with the Milwaukee Braves, the team that moved to Atlanta in 1965. (You’d think AirTran would want to celebrate him now as well.) Aaron spent his last years playing in Atlanta and he’s now a VP with the team, so he’s a hometown hero in Delta’s hometown.

Delta certainly is gaining any fans in San Francisco with this move. There’s no mention of Bonds in the press release and nobody said a word about him at the rollout ceremony yesterday, but there’s no doubt what spurred the timing of this dedication. Nice work, Delta. And forget about Bonds, Giants fans. Start thinking about how to get out of the basement of the NL West instead.

It continues to amaze me that every time an airline comes out with anniversary livery, it looks exactly like the ones that have come before. First, we had ATA’s 25th anniversary. Now at the time, this looked good, because it was the first of its kind. (Sorry, I couldn’t find a shot of the actual plane on their website so I settled for a model from the retail shop.)

Then Horizon came along and decided to introduce a 25th anniversary scheme that once again brought out the streamers. True, the colors were a bit different, but it was basically the same thing. (This one came from the Alaskair.com site.)

Now, SkyWest has come along and decided to roll out a 35th anniversary plane. Thanks to AirlinersGallery.com, we have an early look at the bird.

It’s the same friggin’ thing! Come on, you guys can do better than this, can’t you?

Last week, both Singapore and Aloha came out with some cool looking new planes. First up, let’s take a look at Singapore’s first A380 to come out of the paint shop. I definitely don’t think they got its best side. That cro-magnon looking forehead is definitely exaggerated even further with all that white space. (Taken from Singapore website. Photo credit: Airbus - C. Brinkmann)

Next up we have Aloha’s Wyland-painted 737. Yup, they say it was hand-painted by Wyland, but I don’t know if you can actually hand paint and airplane without affecting drag. Anyway, you might recognize the name - he’s famous for painting huge marine life murals primarily in the US but also all over the world. I found this one on the HNL RareBirds blog, a great place for airplane porn in the Hawaiian Islands.