Some four billion passengers flew in the Boeing 727 fleet before most were retired from passenger service or converted to freight haulers. But John Shearer figures that with the right livery and message he’ll seat 30 more. Shearer is approaching sponsors with a plan to take a 727-200 freighter, a type that is going cheap given obsolescence and excess capacity, and add red and blue pyrotechnics to the wings, feed live video to jumbo screens via his cockpit and wing cameras and splash a corporate logo across 153 feet of old iron.
Shearer is a former chief pilot and manager of line standards and safety for Eastern Airlines, with 20,000 hours in the Boeing trijet. After an MBA and senior roles in marketing, he is now president of Blue Side Up Productions of Chapel Hill, N.C., in addition to roles as an actor, band leader and recording artist–he’ll play the blues at airshows, if requested.
