AA's Nose Cones

[Alex T]

While helping Phil out with some of the photos, I ran across a certain plane and did not know what the registeration was. I tried to match the timing on Phil's camera with what the BTS website gave (ya I have way to much time on my hands hahaha but im dedicated like that :)) and saw the closest plane to match the time of departure with the camera was N499AA. So I looked it up to see if it was the same at airliners.net. I typed in N499AA and got a few pictures of it. Then I looked at the nose of the plane on the pics of a.net and saw it had a white nose cone, the one Phil had was Black. Phil was more recent. Looking back further I saw this switched a couple of times. I took the picture and tried to zoom in on it and saw 4XX. Still could not tell, so i IM'd Phil pointed it out to him and he indeed confirmed it was N499AA and we were wondering why the nose colors swtiched twice. It was BLACK in 2003, became white in 2004, and 2005. then When Phil captured it, it was black again. What is the reason for the constant switch? and is this through AA Maintenance as phil speculated?

Anyway thought this to be interesting and let me know if you know any info.

Alex

[T-Bird76]

Switching nose cones is a common practice, as Phil said it was probably maintenance. It could have had a number of bird strikes in the past that perhaps required a swap. Its interesting that it was white, are you sure it wasn't a light gray? I don't know why AA would have white nose cones unless they were left over from some of the Reno birds they had.

[Alex T]

Switching nose cones is a common practice, as Phil said it was probably maintenance. It could have had a number of bird strikes in the past that perhaps required a swap. Its interesting that it was white, are you sure it wasn't a light gray? I don't know why AA would have white nose cones unless they were left over from some of the Reno birds they had.

Tom- Sounds good to me, when Phil brought MX up that had seem to make more sense but we both decided to post the question in case someone else had a better idea then us. Yes it is light gray after looking again, the picture I was looking at had the sun hitting the nose making it white looking, but it is indeed light gray.

[T-Bird76]

Light grey maks sense being the nose cone isn't made of metal, its some sort of composite plastic they paint black.

LONG LIVE THE MAD DOG!!!!

[Jonesbeach]

Just the other day I saw a United 757 in the blue and white color scheme with and nose cone from the old gray color scheme. Too bad I wasn't quick enough to get a shot of it.

[AA 777]

Cant say im 100% sure but I believe the black nose cones were found in an old TWA hanger somewhere after AA took over TWA....Ill ask some people if I get a chance and if what I said is wrong Ill try and remember to fix it....

[Clipper]

Nose cones are made out of honeycone composite. The different colors could be a replacement used from another vendor or airline's stock when one is not available at the station where the replacement took place. AA can also have Reno stock and TWA stock they need to use up, stripping and repainting can get expensive.

Very common to see airlines fly with a different color nose cone(radome) on 747s. They like to fly thru ice storms and birds a lot.