Wilco 737 EVO V2

[tgycgijoes]

A tough nut to crack for repainting...until you figure it out in Adobe Photoshop. I have been flying up in Canada and the Yukon (virtually) for Air North Yukon's Airline because they are one of the few airlines that are not third world still flying the B734 and B735 actively. Having a lot of fun. I started out using Boeing's livery that comes with the download. I didn't want to spend the extra money or want all the other airlines in the Expanded package. I wrote to Wilco twice for the paintkit because the textures look like jigsaw puzzles to decipher how to repaint from the DDS files. Then I found a download of the EVO paintkit which has made repainting easier. At least as easy as this paintkit can be. I love to repaint in Corel Paintshop Pro and prefer it to Photoshop personally. Though these files all open in PSP with layers, you can't get done what you want to in PSP. So, I bit the bullet and have been doing the work in Photoshop. I have an old version of it and it still does a good job. I spent probably 8 hours getting the hang of it but achieved the result I wanted as you can see from the completed left side of the aircraft below. I have not yet gotten to the wings so the winglets still show the BMI emblem not the Orange Yukon like the tails and the old registration on the nosewheel doors. Looking forward to finishing this and flying in the proper company livery. The photo is taken at CYYC, Calgary International Gate A11. The scenery is a free download quite accurately done. I have flown a few times from here this week on VATSIM.

 

[tgycgijoes]

They're Done

Here are screenshots of BOTH Air North B737-500's. One with winglets and one without both accurate (notice the different registrations) I did not realize until I was studying the photos when I was repainting. C-GANH winglets version is at Calgary and C-GANJ is at Vancouver this afternoon. Though there were a few hiccups matching up type on the fuselage, I'm pleased with how they came out. I still have trouble with Adobe Photoshop but I managed. Except for the Extra repaints in the Deluxe Download, I haven't found any free repaints for the EVO V2. Maybe I am the first? Hard to believe with it out for a while. I only found one by Google at DeeKnows of Air New Zealand two versions.

 

[tgycgijoes]

Part Of The Fleet of Air North

A long time ago I had a virtual airline of Island Air of Hawaii flying EMB120's. A really nice small airline and had a lot of fun flying with my other pilots. Things changed in the real airline and they also switched to ATR's and after a while I shut it down and forgot about the ATR I bought from Flight1 when it first came out.

Well, I resurrected the ATR when I started flying Air North since they have replaced their Hawker Siddley 748s with the ATRs. They are using 42-300s not 72-500s but no one has a 42-300 of the quality of the Flight1 so I am taking license and using my 72-500 for the 42-300 and here is the repaint. The paintkit from Flight1 is really nice. The fuselage is in one piece which makes life soooooo much simpler when painting artwork on the sides of the fuselage, not pieces of fuselage like other paintkits of other aircraft. This repaint is entirely 100% my work using clipart, typesetting and the paintkit. I want to thank customer service at Air North who helped me figure out the placards by the rear door. They are: Yukon flag; Vuntut-Gwitchin First Nation logo; Yukon First Nation Self-government logo. I was able to download after much searching the logos from their websites and painted the fuselage in 4096x4096 so that they would be clearly readable then reduced it to 2048x2048 to reduce fps hit. Really interesting history! The reason the logos are on the aircrafts according to Air North is that the Vuntut-Gwitchin have a big interest in the airline. Its really fun for me when you learn about what you're flying. Here is a photo of the ATR I repainted at CYQU Grande Prairie waiting to takeoff Flight 2505 to Vancouver this afternoon.