Red Airliner

Yesterday, I was noticing all of the air traffice in my little mountain home of Helena, Montana, and I noticed something strange, a completely red airliner. I have done the usual google searches and have not found anything on a company using all red airliners. There is an airforce base about 150 miles north of us, but it seemed to be heading towards the Seattle area (NW). I would like to know if any of you know anything about red airliners, or do you think it was a military aircraft?

Virgin Airlines....

If go to the web site for Virgin, you will find that they do not fly to the northwest, and Montana would be a very very out-of-the-way flight path for any of their flights.

Just the first thing that came to mind...as I've seen them in many airports across the nation...

SeaTac is an international airport, so quite a variety of airliners including foreign, could be the culprit...

[edit on 17-12-2004 by Gazrok]

Maybe they are flying out there because of the tv show the owner of Virgin is doing right now.

Was it sitting at Helena Regional or in-flight? It looks like the primary carriers that fly out of HLN are Northwest, Horizon, Big Sky, SkyWest, and Comair. Of those, the only one with a predominatley red color scheme is Northwest, however only a few of their smaller aircraft are all/mostly red. Did you see what kind of airplane it was?

I doubt it was a military aircriaft, I think they would probably go with the more common white scheme if they were trying to remain inconspicuous.

Could be aircraft from Boeing Field on test flights before delivery, but Northwest seems logical, but the bellies of thier aircraft are white, and the new colors are silver....

Some of Northwest's older, smaller aircraft though, still have the all red paint theme. Boeing could be another source, I remember them being located pretty close to SEATAC....

It seemed to be about the size of a 727 and it was flying over. NW is more of a maroon color, this was primary RED.

Virgin is the only carrier I know that uses bright red all over the aircraft.

If it was in flight, and didn't originate at Helena, it might have been a Virgin 737 on it's way to Boeing feild for retrofitting or something. Or it might have been a one-off protoype out being tested.

Rich Hollywood type and their private jet - 727's are picked up a lot for this - Travolta has one still I think, but I don't know what his paint job is. Hollywood loves Montana though. If it was not a Northwest commuter job then likely a private jet....