Dominicana (A320)
- Owner: Amtran (View all images and albums)
- Uploaded: Apr 26 2014 02:27 AM
- Taken: 2014:04:25 14:31:08
- Views: 2,774
- Album Designs by Amtran
Another retro livery on a new aircraft, this time, for Compañía Dominicana de Aviación, aka Dominicana, the former flag carrier of the Dominican Republic, a carrier I like to revive in AE every now and then.
A bit of a backstory: Dominicana was your typical Latin American flag carrier, founded in 1944 to link the DR, Puerto Rico, the US, and Spain. Starting with DC-3s and DC-6s, among others, they eventually ended up with a fleet of DC-9s, DC-8s, and both models of the 727. At its height in the 80s, it even owned one 747-100, which typically operated to Frankfurt and Madrid. Bad management decisions and an aging fleet led to its demise, as it ended up leasing aircraft it couldn't afford on a rapidly decreasing route network, eventually leading to its aircraft being impounded around Christmas 1994, causing a "temporary" shutdown by the Dominican Republic, which became permanent in 1999.
I based the livery on Dominicana's last real livery (most of the later leased aircraft were painted in the colors of lessors, with a small "Dominicana" on the planes), as seen on one of their 727-200s. A few interesting results of adapting the livery for the A320: the flag was "pinched" at the top, due to the inherent differences between the 727's tail and the A320's tail. I also wasn't able to find an exact (free) font, to match the extra-wide squared "retro Continental" font of the livery, so I settled for Sui Generis, with a modified "C" to match the livery (basically, I copied the O, and cut part of it out, to have the C have horizontal ends).