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There must be a special on airplane paint, because several airlines have unveiled special paint jobs.

With all the discussion of the various Boeing 737 models going on now, I decided to prepare a handy guide to the various models. You can see when the "Classic" models, the -300s, -400s and -500s, were built and then stopped, and when the Next Generation models, the -600s, -700s, -800s, -900s and 900ERs, were launched.

As I, and other aviation reporters, continue to write about Southwest Flight 812's mid-flight hole in its fuselage, we look to industry experts to explain complicated issues like metal fatigue, lap joints, and double current eddy inspections.

Good Lord Almighty, nobody can say that American Airlines doesn't know how to issue a press release.

DALLAS—April 4, 2011—Southwest Airlines said today as of 3:30 p.m. Central Time that it had inspected nearly 90 percent of the 79 Boeing 737-300 aircraft it voluntarily removed from service this weekend. The airline has completed inspection of 67 aircraft and returned 64 of them to service. The remaining three aircraft did have findings of subsurface cracks and will be out of service until Boeing recommends an appropriate repair.

INCREASED jet fuel prices are clearly causing problems for airlines' profit margins. But what if the instability in the Middle East spreads, or worsens? What if oil prices keep rising? Could the airlines survive? Would business travel itself be endangered? Reuters' Peter Myers points to some comforting data from a study conducted by the Global Business Travel Association Foundation (GBTA).

Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren with NYC Aviation was at Boeing Field today, when the first Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental landed and blew one of its tires.

5:45 PM ET: The Federal Aviation Administration has confirmed a Gulfstream G650 test aircraft crashed at 9:30 AM MT on its takeoff roll on runway 15 21 at Roswell International Air Center Airport in Roswell, New Mexico, killing all four aboard.

Southwest Airlines early Saturday decided to ground 81 of its older airplanes for emergency inspections after another airplane developed a hole in its roof during flight.

Southwest announced early this morning that it is grounding 79 Boeing 737s in its fleet to check for metal fatigue.

Lockheed Martin has received a $790 million production contract to produce the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) weapon system for the Missile Defense Agency. 

The AMR/Sterling Global/Allen Weintraub story is the type that gives reporters and editors ulcers.

With no 2011 budget yet approved by Congress and having just finished preparing a 2012 budget proposal, Pentagon budgeteers are back at work looking for ways to cut billions more from defense spending in 2013 and beyond.

GULLIVER is in New Orleans, Louisiana this weekend, where I met up with a group of old friends. Another one of our buddies was supposed to make it down for the weekend, but didn't have the money to buy a ticket in advance. When he finally got his financial affairs sorted out, it was just a week before the trip. His plan was to wait until the last minute and hope for some great last-minute flight deals. Needless to say, it didn't work out. We had a great weekend, but he wasn't here to share it with us.

Every year, J.P. Morgan holds its annual Aviation, Transportation and Defense conference, giving companies in those sectors a chance to brief investors.

THIS is a fun one: on Wednesday, a passenger on a Delta flight allegedly started telling people that he was an air marshal. Sometimes, you might be able to get away with this—air marshals aren't on every flight. But Wednesday was not this imposter's lucky day. There was a real air marshal on Delta Flight 1922, and when the real air marshal got wind of the fake one's claims, he detained the man in question.