Republic Airlines  Boeing 727-2S7 Adv  N716RC   (c/n  22021)

                                       

                                            Republic picked up eight Boeing 727s from Hughes Air West in 1980 and then acquired another ten
                                            of their own (including three ex Ansett Airlines of Australia  machines).   The above shot was taken
                                            by Ellis Chernoff at Memphis in September of 1986, a scant two months before Republic Airlines
                                            was fully taken over by Northwest Airlines, which might tend to indicate that this particular machine,
                                            at any rate, was never painted in Republic's final livery (although several 727s were).  The acquisition
                                            by Northwest of Republic Airlines was a very large transaction indeed.  It cost the former carrier $885
                                            million to accomplish the deed, while its work force doubled, if not overnight, certainly within a year.
                                            (The merger was started in January of 1986 but was not legally completed until 1 October of that year). 
                                           And so Herman the Goose, who had adorned aircraft fuselages and tails since the Lockheed 10-A days
                                           of Wisconsin Central in 1948 was finally, and sadly, laid to rest.