Enter the New Mark: Eastern's Hockeystick

Floyd D. Hall tookover the reins at Eastern in December 1963 following the somewhat turbulent MacIntyre period. Fortunately he would not be dogged by Rickenbacker as MacIntyre had been. With the new President and the attempted merger with American firmly rejected, by the CAB the previous April, it was time for a change and that resulted in the famous New Mark scheme - or as it is better known the 'Hockeystick'.

Flloyd Hall's transformation of Eastern, 'Operation Bootstrap' as it became known, was a major overhaul of almost the entire airline and the livery change was only one part of it. Eastern had been playing around with new scheme suggestions for some time, if early design concept drawings for the 727 are to be believed. They show a 727-100 with a two part spear cheatline large EASTERN titles and a big slanting E on the tail. Hall wanted to get rid of the Falcon altogether but was persuaded otherwise and Fortunately Eastern went down a more tasteful route than this. The falcon logo was kept but as in the past it was streamlined.

The new Falcon was unveiled in 1964, prior to the full scheme's unveiling, and consisted of a minimalist Falcon, made up of only two lines, drawn in white on a dark blue oval background. At the time Eastern was still tinkering with the livery and painted several aircraft in trial versions with the falcon on the tail and straight two-tone blue cheatlines, as sported below on a Convair 440 (and in the Connie photo). At least one DC-8-51 (N8781R) was painted in another version where the lower cheatline curved downwards forward of the wing and went under the nose.

In the end the final New Mark was unveiled in 1965 and went for a slightly more racy version of the scheme leaving the falcon on the fuselage by the titles but replacing it on the tail with the two-tone blue cheatline (Caribbean Blue over Ionosphere Blue) upswinging parallel with the rudder (like a hockeystick). The scheme was designed to convey a feeling and impression of:

"a safe, reliable company, one which works hard in behalf of its customers, which is inventive in their behalf, which strives for excellence."

At the time the Eastern was undertaking a major re-equipment cycle replacing its large and obsolete prop-liner fleet with new 727-100s, and from 1966 DC-9s. These would join the relatively small fleets of DC-8s and 720s and replace the Convair 440s, Constellations, DC-7Bs and eventually L-188 Electras. The New Mark especially suited the 727s and DC-9s with their T-tails and Whisperjet titles (the latter meant to suggest quietness onboard rather than the noise outside, which was anything but a whisper).

It wasn't just the new jets that received the hockeystick however. In 1964 the DC-7Bs could still be seen operating widely on the network, though they weren’t used for shuttle services and instead found themselves mainly operating multi-stop routes along the East coast like Washington-Atlanta via Richmond and Detroit to Charlotte via Toledo and Columbus.

By November 1965 Constellations began to replace the final DC-7s as they were in turn replaced by Electras on the Shuttle. The last 8 DC-7s were sold in 1966 with the last leaving in October. Despite this about 10 aircraft were repainted in the New Mark scheme before their careers ended including N829D (see above) who left the fleet in January 1966.

Many of the L-1049 Constellations also saw the New Mark applied, though as stated they were themselves being supplanted on the shuttle by Electras and from February 1, 1967 new DC-9-31s. The last Connies left the fleet in early 1968. The last piston props in the fleet would in fact be the CV-440s which lasted into 1970. The New Mark would serve Eastern well and it is great that it would be applied to such a wide range of aircraft in the diverse Eastern fleet.

References

1980. Serling, Robert J. From the Captain To The Colonel: An Informal History of Eastern Airlines
Evanich III, John. Lost Schemes: #269 Eastern Airlines DC-7B (1965)