In September IAC completed a special livery for Rossiya Airlines featuring the face of an Amur Tiger on the nose of a Boeing 747. As part of a collaboration with the ‘Amur Tiger Centre’ to raise awareness of the challenges of preserving and enhancing the unique population of Amur leopard tigers this special livery highlights the Russian airlines commitment to the preservation of the Amur tiger. Taking a total of twelve days to complete this livery required full paint strip of the fuselage and sanding of composite areas. After paint strip fuselage was pre-treated and one coat of primer was applied to complete a/c., one cross coat of white / red base coat paint and two coats of clear coat was applied on fuselage, tail and engines. Each individual coat took two hours to apply with the final clear coat taking four hours. The face of the Amur tiger was created using a mix of 9 different colours, four principle colours and variations of each to get the required shading. The Tigers face was applied from a basic pre designed sketch but predominately painted free hand on site in Fiumicino. The fuselage and tail pattern was applied from 300 1m sq. paint stencils joined together on site applied to a/c and painted bringing a total weight of paint used to 500 kilograms, the same weight as a grand piano. A total of 15,300 sanding discs were used and 800 roles of masking tape. The Boeing 747 (EI-XLD) in the special tiger livery seats 522 passengers, including 12 business class seats on the upper deck. To mark the creation of this special livery, Rossiya Airlines had a film crew come to our hangar in Fiumicino, Rome to film the IAC team bringing the stunning tiger design to life on a Boeing 747.
Watch this special livery being painted at our Rome facility below.