The livery of the new Airbus A350F freighter is a work of art. The joint winners of the design competition in 2022 were graphic designer John Feehan from Dublin and Canadian brothers Quinnten and Ellisten Iversen, then aged 16 and 12.
For completeness, and for the age-curious out there, John was then 57.
@psneeze
Does exactly what it says on the tin.
@rotan Ha! Totally.
@psneeze Yes that is very very good
@oisin Right down to the reg. F-WXLD (eXtra Large Door)
@psneeze "this way up" seems particularly useful for a plane
@waider 😁
@psneeze thanks, only now it's possible to calculate the average age of an Airbus design competition winner :D
(to be 28 again and having ones own livery flying around the world. or at least over France. *sigh*)
@psneeze
The livery is beautiful, but can we talk about its camouflage characteristics?!
If it wasn't for the white wings, you'd be hard-pressed to see an air plane over this plain ;-)
@psneeze looks like a cigarette
@interrobang A cigar perhaps.
@psneeze good that they didn't put perforations with those pull tabs on the wings an have some ground crew accidentally detach the wings.
@johnefrancis Maybe next time. 😁
@psneeze For ships, cardboard and cardboard derivatives are not allowed anymore: https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM?is=5Xi4QS9EYuhgVSSa
@jsl Do you think the front might fall off? 🤔
@Madagascar_Sky @psneeze But they're flying the plane out of the environment. It's all perfectly safe.
@psneeze
Brilliant! 😀
@psneeze Oh that's great; I found the original winner page and the two designs are pretty similar and they've made a good combination of bits from both:
https://www.airbus.com/en/newsroom/events/a350f-airbus-livery-design-competition/a350f-get-to-know-the-winners
@penguin42 Yes, they combined them very well. And they made use of the aircraft registration too — F-WXLD for eXtra Large Door.
Oct 4, 2026, 2:49 PMThis is a “white tail” plane: a flying test article without a launch customer’s livery. Airbus would’ve flown this in ALC’s livery as they were the first big order (2021) but they cancelled. CGM became the launch customer in 2025, probably too late to paint it in their colors.
When you see a white tail at launch, it means the company is betting the farm. Cool that Airbus turned it into a nice PR project.
@Benhm3 Thank the old gods and the new that ALC cancelled. This livery is wonderful.
I wonder if they would have gone white tail anyway, even with ALC. This is a whole new aircraft. It's not like they simply took the seats out of a 1000 and blocked off the passenger windows. If I had a farm I'd bet it on the 350F myself.
@psneeze Your novelty toy will be shipped in a plain brown wrapper. 😋
@samueljohnson 🫣 😂
@psneeze ``this way up'' 🤣
@psneeze the camouflaged tail a nice twist
@nickj Wait! There's a tail? I couldn't see it.