Monday 1st March felt, somewhat ironically, very much like a red letter day. We were finally treated to the release of a former Virgin Atlantic aircraft, namely G-VAST - another Boeing 747-400.
Now I know a lot of people will probably be a bit tired of seeing 747 releases, but I think they are justified considering their history. And whilst they’re not one of my favourite aircraft ever, I can certainly appreciate the work they’ve done.
G-VAST followed the tradition of Virgin aircraft being named, being called “Ladybird”. MSN 28757 was delivered to the airline in 1997 and managed 23 years before being stored and cut up at St. Athan.
This release had a significant number of things going in its favour. It is only the third time we have had tags cut from a British civil airliner (G-CELR and G-EUOH), and after reading about how Virgin paint their aircraft, it would have been safe to assume that G-VAST would have the same sparkle that the likes of C-FCAG and A6-EID do.
We’re glad to say that this assumption was not wrong. The variations from this release were white, aubergine and bi-colour. The shades of the deep purple (sorry, aubergine) vary, as do the patterns and quantities of colour on the bicolour tag. The tags are all of a good thickness, owing to them being cut towards the top of the fuselage.
The special engraving on this edition is of a stylised Union Flag, similar to that that the Virgin “pin up girls” drape off their shoulders on the side of the aircraft. A very nice touch, and a suitable nod to Ladybird’s past life.
Understandably the aubergine tags sold out very quickly, and no doubt their value will significantly increase over the next few weeks and months. This means if you managed to get one on release day, you can rest assure that it will hold its value for many years to come.
Fortunately however, we do still have stock of the white tag available on our store page.
