Those of us who grew up in the Northeast or Midwest and are over 30 years old probably remember Allegheny Airlines....a solid, conservative "regional" airline that served mainly short-haul routes in the densely populated North...especially in Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh was its main hub. Allegheny's logo was rather bland.....two skewed rectangles that formed an abstract bird in flight. If I remember correctly the colors were blue and red. Below is a grainy scan of an old photograph taken from the observation deck at the old terminal at the Pittsburgh airport, late fall, 1976. This isn't the best angle I could find, yet the design on the aircraft is at at least v visible.
Historical sidenotes: Notice the Boeing 747 in the background with the (then) new logo/livery design for United Airlines. It was much more common to see widebody jets on domestic routes in the 70s...mainly 747s, DC-10s and L-1011s. From what I understand there is only one scheduled domestic 747 flight left in the US...a United Airlines 747 on the Chicago to Los Angeles run.
Also, the BAC 1-11 was perhaps the nosiest jetliner every built...this small stubby DC-9-looking jetliner made a high-pitched screeching sound when it took off, which was much worse than larger airliners. Allegheny was one of a handful of airlines that purchased this British airliner, besides Braniff and American Airllines.
Probably inspired by PSA's early/mid 70s change to a bold 3-tiered red and pink gradient design for its aircraft livery, Allegheny changed it's logo/livery to a sort of 3-tired red, burnt orange and burgundy. The old logo was eliminated. This scheme did not last very long. I think it began sometime in 76, and some of its livery was converted, but not all. Priority was given to the newly-bought DC-9 series 50 airliners, which was the precursor to the MD-80. Allegheny Airlines officially changed its name to "USAir," a more appropriate choice to reflect the post Civil Aeronautics Board era where airlines could fly where they wanted to without government approval. This was a much better choice an airline with broader-reaching routes as opposed to using the name of an obscure river in Pennsylvania.
USAir later changed its logo/liver to a dark blue and the airlines is currently know as USAirways.
