Wedgetail Meets USCG

The Wedgetail variation of Project Opensky’s Boeing 737-700 has been around for a while,  but was only available in Royal Australian Air Force colors.   Thanks for Colin Lowe, Wedgetail enthusiasts have something a little more colorful to fly in.  Recently released is a United States Coast Guard (USCG) livery that really brightens up this bird.

USCG Wedgetail at Boeing Field

I loaded up the repaint in FS2004 and took it out for a flight from Boeing Field (KBFI) to Santa Barbara Municipal (KSBA).

Turning on to course after leaving Boeing Field

The flight was pretty uneventful.  I did find that the roll rate of the Wedgetail is pretty slow.  It is sorta like driving Cadillac when you are used to smaller aircraft that handle like a Porsche.

Passing over Mt. St. Helens

One of the things that impressed me most about this combination of model and livery was how great the colors matched with the shape of the aircraft.  The red markings on the wings really give the 737 a much larger presence.  While not exactly stealthy, the bright red makes for great show.

Landing on SBA's runway 7

It was the approach to Santa Barbara that really showed off the Wedgetail’s lazy handling.  To accommodate it, I found myself flying a wide approach to runway 7 so that I would have plenty of distance to align with the runway.  In doing so, short-final was smooth, although I brought her in a little slow and slammed the wheels on the runway.  Hey, I just wanted to make sure the crew was awake for our arrival on the central coast.

Overall, flying the USCG Wedgetail is a lot of fun.  There is a lot of eye candy here and Colin did a great job representing the livery in flight simulator.

Filename: b737uscg-1.zip (flightsim.com)
Filesize: 5mb
Author: Model – POSKY ; Livery – Colin Lowe

update 11jul09 – fixed some spelling and grammatical errors. ;-(

Tags: Boeing, flight simulator, flightsim, FS9, FSX, hobbies, hobby, screenshots