Airline Guitars were originally made in the USA from 1958-1968 and sold via mail-order. Today you can get re-issued Airline Guitars through Eastwood Guitars and you can purchase them online (or through selected bricks and mortar guitar stores). Times may change, but cool looking guitars need not. That’s how I feel about the Airline 3P DLX (in black). This guitar has a funky appeal that just makes me want to play guitar for hours while I experiment with the tones and sounds that only a three pickup guitar can.
Apart from the retro design and the number of pickups, I love that the pickups themselves all have individual volume and tone controls. You could find the perfect tone for each pickup and know it’s still there as you switch from pickup to pickup using the five-way pickup selector. Of course there are other guitars that apply the individual volume/tone controls to the pickups in their guitars, but how many of them also apply a master volume control that applies to all pickups? I of course don’t know how many, but I don’t believe it’s a large number (when compared to the number of guitars out there).
The final feature that I love about this guitar is its bridge. A five-way roller bridge by Bigsby. It just looks sexy. The Bigsby looks sexy generally, but it’s a perfect fit (in a design sense) on the Airline guitar. Retro is back!
Disclaimer: I’ve not played this guitar. I have not experienced the sound or feel of this guitar. That doesn’t matter. It looks awesome, it’s obviously played by winners and I want one.
