RideLust

We here at Ridelust.com don’t discriminate over vehicles. In fact if you can stick a human in it, on it or over it, then we’ll write about it. I was passing LaGuardia Airport this afternoon and notice a plane with this wicked red and blue paint job. Sadly, I didn’t have a camera with me to snap a picture, but it got me thinking about custom paint jobs for airplanes. I mean we’ve got custom cars, bikes and boats, so why not a custom airplane, right? Obviously, I use the term custom lightly here, as the last thing we want to see are planes with zoomies sticking out of the jet engines or planes with chopped roof lines, as that may in fact screw up the aerodynamics. After doing a bit of digging though I found out there were a few air carriers out there that actually decided to have a little fun with their big birds. The below is just a quick pictorial of some pretty cool planes that you may, or may not see flying over your friendly skies.

• Thailands Nok-Air

I’ll be honest, I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a parrot, a toucan or some comic character off a cereal box. I’d imagine though that it’s freaked our its share of migrating birds.

• Southwest Shamu

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no! It’s a killer whale? Yep, apparently Southwest Airlines created this little number to promote its relationship with Seaworld. Notice how closely it resembles Shamu…

• Western Pacific’s Simpsons Shuttle

Aside from being the longest running American sitcom in TV history, the Simpsons also have enough clout to get their own plane. Check out Marge’s fro on the tail… totally bitchen’!

• Qantas Airways Desert Plane

I’m just going to assume that this is supposed to be what you’ll see when you get lost in the outback and begin to suffer from heat exhaustion. Hallucinations anyone?

• Continental’s Peter Max Plane

For those of you who don’t know, Peter Max was a psychedelic artist from the 1960′s who created some of the trippiest paintings out there. He created this little diddy for Continental Airlines in 1996 to spice up an otherwise bland blue sky.

• Iron Maiden – Airline Eddie

Eddie’s on the tail… nuff said.

• F-16 Fighter

I have no idea why this was created and nor do I care. This F-16 AM sports the coolest paint job I have yet to see on a flying machine. Simply awesome!

• U.S. Air – Arizona Cardinals

I’ll say it… I know absolutely nothing about sports. So, with that being said, are these guys good enough to have their own airplane? Seems expensive no?

• All Nippon – Pokemon Air

I actually threw up a little in my mouth when I first saw this. Just imagine being bird and seeing this thing fly by. They’d probably tuck their wings and dive bomb straight into oblivion. Poor bastards.

• Alaska Airlines – Big Salmon

You think Sarah Palin flies on this fish?