Jump to content
MalaysianWings - Malaysia's Premier Aviation Portal
KS Ong

oneworld Malaysia Airlines. The Making.

Recommended Posts

Once again, it was a pleasure working with Malaysia Airlines again to document another historic moment, joining the oneworld alliance.

Equipment used was 9M-MTE, a one and half years young, delivered August 11.

Her schedule has been quite tight. Prior to painting, she underwent C check from 16 Jan till the 24. And she has to be ready for the unveiling on the 31.

 

24 Jan - Rub Down (This is a new plane, no paint strip required), Primer

25 Jan - White Fuselage, Tail, Winglet

26 Jan - Stenciling oneworld, logo

27 Jan - Masking, Blue and Red

28 Jan - Demask for Degrease, Clear Coat

29 Jan - Full Demask

 

Here she is before being prep for the rub down

DSC_4569_zps2c921141.jpg

 

IMG_4416_zps756ec3e4.jpg

 

IMG_4420_zps0480eee6.jpg

 

DSC_4534_zpsa7648406.jpg

 

DSC_4564_zps5544187d.jpg

 

DSC_4568_zps8eb82f31.jpg

 

IMG_3467_zpsc2087bd9.jpg

 

DSC_4584_zps4990f4f5.jpg

 

DSC_3771_zps4eae94d0.jpg

 

DSC_3767_zpsf0646692.jpg

 

DSC_3774_zpsa0b57668.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Rubdown

It is considered to many the noisiest, one of the most tiring, tedious and time consuming process before painting an aircraft. Rub-down is literally sandpapering old paint from the fuselage using Air Sander. It works like your ordinary car polisher. Instead of sponge, the painters had to stick sandpaper at the rotating end and it uses pneumatics system instead of electric power. Size wise, it is slightly bigger than a person's hand.

 

For MTE, the painters only rubbed down three selected areas instead of the whole aircraft. Forward fuselage (between door 1 and slightly after door 2), tail, and winglets. The reason, oneworld would want the member airline to maintain their original livery elements while adapting its logo.

 

Back to the rub-down. It took them almost 12 hours, just to finish it as they had minimal manpower to cover a big area with a small tool. Moreover, they had to change the sandpaper every 2/3 minutes and work on a particular area for about 10-15 minutes before moving to another. They also had to use force to press the sander against the fuselage to ensure the paint is properly sand away. This is literally 'Hard Labor'.

 

DSC00029_zps29b98f07.jpg

 

DSC_3766_zps222cfe35.jpg

 

IMG_3522_zps3077d1f7.jpg

 

DSC_5663_zpsdeb0f144.jpg

 

DSC_5836_zps3f15d7bd.jpg

 

DSC_5849_zpse5570490.jpg

 

DSC_5863_zps17afe910.jpg

 

DSC_5853_zps851ff8e4.jpg

 


Time lapse

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

From where I left off... The painters who rubbed down MTE.

DSC_5754_zpsbb791f3a.jpg

 

DSC_5757_zps20c04a91.jpg

 

DSC_5759_zps049b13ab.jpg

 

Overnight, the applied primers and the next morning, MTE is ready for WHITE.

DSC_3953_zpsd569945b.jpg

 

DSC_3956_zps73c15863.jpg

 

All done and ready for another coat.

DSC_6804_zps2e3db97f.jpg

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Another stage that is tedious, time consuming and tiring is the stenciling, drawing and lining the masking tape process.

Unlike the Retro scheme which comes with pre-mask (pre printed sticker which later can be removed), the team only had one tail logo and one oneworld template.

First, they had to cut small triangle holes (side of a thumb) along the edges of the template. This is very time consuming and the gap between two holes should not be wider than a palm, especially at the sections that curves.

DSC_7769_zpsb27e2399.jpg

 

DSC_7780_zps92d91c2f.jpg

 

NEF_1845_zps2cd6983b.jpg

 

Then, they bring up to the aircraft, measure, leveling and position correctly before drawing lines in the triangle holes.

DSC_7602_zpsecd05417.jpg

 

DSC_7559_zps1f74de90.jpg

 

Once the lines are drawn, the painters remove the template and uses masking tapes to connect the lines.

This is probably the adult version of drawing/connecting the lines. Straight lines are easy to do. But the curves, it can take quite some time to get it right.

DSC_7685_zps1faece62.jpg

 

DSC_7690_zps64005615.jpg

 

DSC_4107_zpsa765ae0c.jpg

 

DSC_4181_zps8e4363e8.jpg

 

By the time they finish the tail/winglet, including wrapping, it was already sun set; and still continuing to doing the forward oneworld section.

DSC_7830_zpsbcb8f01a.jpg

 

DSC_7835_zpsf4ae404b.jpg

 

DSC_4215_zpse567141f.jpg

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Why was the tail-logo removed and re-applied again on MTE ?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Why was the tail-logo removed and re-applied again on MTE ?

 

They repositioned the tail-logo. The new position of the tail logo is similar to the ones on the A380.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...