Big Flying Fish

EVERETT – This is one big fish that’s going to get away. Far away.

Over the past month, painters at Goodrich Corp.’s Everett jet maintenance facility have painstakingly airbrushed an Alaska Airlines 737 to make it look like a giant chinook salmon.

It’s part of a $500,000 promotion for the Alaskan seafood industry, which sees the giant flying fish as “a traveling billboard flying all over the West Coast,” said Bill Hines, executive director of the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board.

For Alaska Airlines, it’s a chance to reinforce ties with a key cargo customer.

“It just seems to make a lot of sense that we work together to promote what’s an incredibly important product for them,” said Mark Yerbin, the airline’s director of cargo operations in Seattle.

And for Mukilteo wildlife artist Mark Boyle, it was a chance to create on a one-of-a-kind canvas.

“I’m still pinching myself,” he said, looking at the plane in a Goodrich hangar. “Did this really happen?”

Alaska Airlines unveiled its newly christened “Salmon-Three-Salmon” Saturday at Seattle Tacoma International Airport in a ceremony that included 2,000 guests, American Indian dancing, fish-throwing demonstrations and lots of Alaska seafood.

It was the culmination of a long year of planning and painting.

Dan Bates / The Herald Associated Painters workers Raul Maldonado (on lift) and Chip Boyett remove paper wrapping from a newly painted Alaska Airlines jet.

Associated Painters – the contractors who paint jets for Goodrich – have done custom-painting projects before. Earlier this year, they emblazoned Disney character Tinker Bell on another Alaska Airlines jet as part of a 50th anniversary promotion for Disneyland.

This project was far more complicated, said Reed Friese, Associated Painters’ manager. “It’s safe to say it was three times as complex.”

Painting the salmon on the sides of the 737-400 involved applying base colors, then laying down computer-generated stencils atop that, which allowed painters to airbrush in the salmon’s skin, scales and spots with sparkling Mylar paint, he said. “We had to bring it through to that airbrush stage at least three times.”

“They were constantly covering stuff up,” said Boyle, the artist. “Otherwise, you get overspray. There was a lot of masking and unmasking.”

Associated’s crews worked double shifts for 24 days to complete the project, Friese said. It usually takes them about seven days to do a standard Alaska Airlines paint job.

In spite of the workload, it was a fun project to work on, he said. Given the shape of a salmon, “it’d be one of the most natural things you could put on a fuselage.”

It came off pretty well, Boyle said. “They did an awesome job on the airbrushing.”

Boyle’s day job is working for Teague, the industrial design group that works with the Boeing Co. But he’s also a wildlife artist who admits to being “obsessed with fishing all my life.”

The painting is of a spring-run chinook – or king salmon – Boyle caught on one of his trips to the Olympic Peninsula. He started with an outline of the fish against the side of the plane, then filled in the details.

The flying fish idea has been kicking around for a while, Hines said. But this year, the federal government gave the newly formed marketing board money to promote the Alaska seafood industry.

The salmon in the sky is “the biggest bang for the buck you could possibly get,” he said.

It also makes sense to work with Alaska Airlines on the project, Hines said.

The airline and the industry have a unique relationship, he said. “I’m not aware of any other major airline that has such a close affinity with an industry.”

Alaska provides regular air service to remote Alaskan fishing villages. This network allows the airline to get fish from the net to restaurant plates in New York and Boston within 24 hours, Hines said. And the fresher the fish, the higher the price that it commands.

“Obviously, that works in favor of the industry,” he said.

For Alaska, shipping seafood is a profitable and growing business. In recent years, it’s shipped between 26 million and 28 million pounds of fresh seafood out of Alaska annually. That’s on its way up to 30 million this year – the majority of it salmon.

“There just seems to be an insatiable demand for this fresh Alaska wild salmon,” Yerbick said.

During peak periods, such as the Copper River salmon season, literally every Alaska Airlines jet leaving the state is carrying fresh seafood, he said. The airline holds conference calls every morning to coordinate seafood shipments.

It’s a challenge, Yerbick said, because “it’s a highly perishable item.” As little as “a couple of hours at the wrong temperature” can ruin the value of a load.

Alaska plans to use the “Salmon-Three-Salmon” on a variety of routes in and out of Alaska, and as far afield as Mexico, Dallas and Chicago.

“That’s invaluable,” Hines said. “That’s our ambassador. It’s going to be unique, and I think it carries a significant message.”

Reporter Bryan Corliss: 425-339-3454 or corliss@heraldnet.com.