Would love to see this livery on the 737-400 its gorgeous:)
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British Airways only have / had 6 737-400’s as they were set to retire them in 2015. I’m not sure if all 6 have retired yet though.
Im not sure either but this aircraft is great:)
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I love BA liveries.
What up with the nose cone on this one?
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they do serve a purpose some 757s, 767s and 737s aircraft with a black ring nose tells ATC at compatible airports that the aircraft is fitted with a system called “Microwave Landing Sytem, or MLS”.
This sytem is being trialled by British Airways with the CAA principally at Heathrow and Gatwick airports, and allows fitted aircraft to make the approach and even landing automatically using Microweave frenquency from the airport directed to the aircraft. This technology is meant to be a lot more accurate and efficient than the automated systems currently in place
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I think you are getting two different things confused here.
Black rings - these were only ever on some 757s and 737s. The 737-400s are all gone, I think the last went last September. I think the ring was something to do with electrical conduction or lightening protection, but with more modern aircraft it is possible to achieve without the ring,
MLS - this is a “new gen” instrument landing system, like an ILS v 2.0 I suppose. I don’t believe any BA 757s or 737s ever had it. MLS is fitted to virtually all the LHR based A320 series aircraft and LHR’s runways are all MLS capable so BA A320 series aircraft coming in to LHR all use MLS. Obviously none of the BA A320 series aircraft have the black ring so clearly MLS and black rings are not linked.
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As Far as am aware and if I recall my ATPL ground school correctly, I was told by an instructor that although MLS is far more accurate than ILS, its pretty much dead… sighting that the Advancements in GPS will be far superior in the future… Most Airports and Airlines I think are banking on that , rather than forking up the Kit for MLS (very Expensive) when the ILS system works just fine for most people. but hey if your BA and LHR… what is money right :)
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It’s actually a ring of special conductive paint to deal with the static charge that is created whilst flying. I researched this a while ago so I could be wrong but I’ll have a look around again :)
And I have no idea why it’s not on other 737/757’s from other airlines, perhaps BA opted for it ?
Edit:
So the paint is there to draw static charge away from the ray dome to prevent interference. Apperently, other planes require this and some airlines eg Alitalia just opted to have a completely black nose for there full fleet (old livery). However since then, the conductive paint can now be any colour (or it is built into the ray dome) allowing the nose to be any colour eg white, without the need for a “ring” so this is supposed to be the reason why older liveries had dark noses!
To sum up its conductive paint but we don’t see it anymore as it can be any colour (and apparently it explains the “retro” black noses of the 70’s-80’s but I’m not sure in this !)
Hope this helps !! :)
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Thanks @Nick_ChapmanA350. I knew it was something to do with conducting electrical charge but couldn’t remember the details.
Np! Happy to help :)
Absolutely. Comair also operate 737-800s I think. They are a franchise of BA. BA themselves don’t operate 737s any more unfortunately.
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I’m not starting an argument but it doesn’t hurt anything to request.
I actually prefer the BA livery on the a320 family but this also nice :)
Many people are requesting aircraft that arent in the game or liveries from aircraft that arent in the game its not just me
Was really the -400 capable of transporting more passengers than the -700?
It is slightly longer but only by like a meter…
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