Airline Solid Body Electric

This is a white solid body electric with two silver faces single coil pickups, I think Humbuckers, and a Gibson pickup in the bridge which is a floating bridge. The pickguard is raised, and it has a chunky neck with great tuners. There is a three way switch, one for each pickup, and two pots for each... six little black nobs on the top in a row, and a master volume. I guess the pots for each pickup are tone and volume, although they both act like tone nobs. It has kind of a Gibson SG shape, and the strings are suspended from a raised metal tailpiece with a machined alluminum stop. The Airline logo is gone, but the number plate is still on the back - T66941. I saw a picture of a 40's/50's black Jazz guitarist with this guitar at my local used guitar shop and that's how I figured out it was an Airline...

The guitar has an awesome overall twang which sounds great with a little distortion for rockin blues/country sounds. I have also played it using a slide turned up with the bridge pickup for an amazing haunting slide sound. This guitar definately sounds best with the amp turned up, and it's clean sound is a bit wooden and toy instrument sounding without reverb and a little gain. It's an excellent raw sounding rock and roll guitar and gets great feedback and overtones. Overall, the variety of sounds you can get from this guitar are surprising.

I found this guitar under the stairs at an old appartment in a torn and battered cardboard case... it took me a couple years to figure out how to set it up and play the thing. At first it sounded like shit untill I re-set the action and put light strings on it, and now the actions great... easy to bend almost two octaves. I'm sure it could use a rewiring, but I like the rawness.

This guitar is durable... I wail on it all the time. As the bridge is floating and the stop on a suspended metal tail, the most common problem is pooping the high E off the nutt or bridge... an easy fix. This guitar somehow seems to stay in tune despite everything moving around... I'm impressed. For a gig it's a guitar for specific tunes, not the whole show, unless your way into the classic blues/country twang.

Eh? I don't even know who made the thing or what year it is!

I have to say this guitar has found it's way into my heart... once you get to know it, the sounds you can get are astounding, and it plays like a dream... for me it's a keeper.