All Nippon Airways (ANA) once operated the Boeing 747-400D with a special Marine Jumbo livery (aircraft registration: JA8963), which has now been brought to life as a nebuta float by students from Rokugo Technical High School in Ota Ward, near the Mizumon Street shopping district by Zoshiki Station. ANA officially authorized the production, and flight attendants attended the unveiling event.
The school holds the Rokugo Nebuta Festival in November every year as part of a comprehensive learning project, with the Marine Jumbo nebuta being one of the festival floats. It’s the second year running that an ANA-themed nebuta made its appearance, following the initiative of a student chairman who was an aviation fan and proposed a collaboration with ANA to recreate the Airbus A380 FLYING HONU (aircraft registration: JA383A) as a nebuta. The collaboration project continues after that successful partnership.
The Marine Jumbo is considered a pioneer among Japanese airlines’ special livery aircraft and was operated between 1993 and 1995 to commemorate ANA’s 500 million passenger milestone. The design was selected from a public competition, with a primary school student’s submission chosen. The entire aircraft was depicted as a large blue whale adorned with various sea creatures like fish and jellyfish.
The nebuta float is approximately 2.5 meters in length and 2 meters in width. Students from the evening course crafted it by hand with wire and Japanese paper, using pictures and model planes as references. They meticulously represented features such as the two-deck bulge typical of jumbo jets. The colorful livery was faithfully depicted, and LED lights were used to simulate navigation and anti-collision lights. Ms. Asako Shirata, a senior leading the production team, commented, “We experimented with various colors while comparing them to photographs. I believe we were able to replicate the beautiful paintwork successfully.”
During the festival, students paraded the nebuta along with other floats through the shopping district for about an hour and a half. Ms. Ayumi Matsui, a flight attendant who helped pull the nebuta, had visited the school during production to help with the pasting work. Ms. Matsui was amazed at the high fidelity of the completed nebuta, stating, “The Marine Jumbo has many fans among our customers. The painting has been reproduced beautifully.” She also mentioned receiving warm comments from onlookers familiar with ANA, expressing that the festival provided an excellent opportunity for interaction between the airline and the community.
There are plans to transfer the nebuta to ANA, which intends to display it at the ANA Blue Base (ABB) training facility.
Notice
This article was generated using automatic translation by GPT-4 API. The translation may not be accurate.
