# Aircraft and Operator Identification Help

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aircraft-and-operator-identification-help/554978>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 25, 2010, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aircraft-and-operator-identification-help/554978 "2010-09-25T05:37:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\
**Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aircraft-and-operator-identification-help/554978/21 "2010-09-26T16:58:01Z")

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> [@Waffle\_Decider](#):
>
> Hmm, I’m leaning towards misidentifying a Purolator B727. I don’t think TAM flies to Chicago, and according to both Wikipedia and Swissair’s website, they no longer fly MD11s…

I realised after I posted that Swissair had retired their MD11s, I think by gradually replacing them after the crash of Swissair 111.

> [@Shoeless](#):
>
> > [@mnemosyne](#):
> >
> > I keep coming back to the Tristar owned by the Kansas City Airline History Museum, which was _originally_ painted in TWA colours - [red tail and all](http://www.eucomairlines.de/prodlist/n31019.jpg)- but is now in [another livery](http://i.pbase.com/g6/35/333035/2/81149575.tdFmBEeY.jpg) and isn’t currently airworthy anyways. I don’t think they’ve repainted it or made it flyable, but it might be possible.
> 
> The L1011 at the Kansas City Airline History Museum barely got the FAA approval to fly it from Roswell NM to KC. It arrived back in late January and isn’t going anywhere now - it’s permanently parked at the museum.

That’s what I thought, but it’s the one L-1011 that could conceivably be repainted in TWA colours, even though I couldn’t find anything about it having been done. It seemed really unlikely that they would have brought it up to airworthiness standards, since it’s intended as a static display, but I could imagine some sort of flight to a maintenance/overhaul place to get it looking like they want it. Just seemed very unlikely - and very expensive - though!

I guess one other possibility would have been the removal of an L-1011 from storage in order to ferry it to Africa/Middle East/ wherever for a new operator, but having looked at the list of aircraft in the link I posted, it seems like pretty much every single one of the airworthy ones has a blue tail anyways!

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