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.