Air Farce One

[Fambo Number Mive]

At a time when we face a deep recession, so glad the government are spending public money wisely:

https://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnsons-jet-gets-austin-powers-makeover-12007923

...Mr Johnson, as foreign secretary in 2018, said he would like a "Brexit plane" to help him travel the world.

He made the comments after complaining about the unavailability of the "grey" Voyager aircraft that is also used by members of the Royal Family.

At that time Mr Johnson said spending money on a new aircraft, which would promote the government's vision of global Britain, would be justified if costs were not "exorbitant"...

Given the man regards £250k as chickenfeed, not sure what he would count as exorbitant.

Imagine being the second most powerful person in the UK and focusing on things like the colour of your plane. Like Trump, Johnson wants the glamour of being PM without having to do the actual work.

[Dr Trouser]

[Quote]

PM departs for Brussels as Brexit negotiations continue.

[Norton Canes]

[gif of that pre-Wright-brothers plane with about eight pairs of wings that all collapse into each other as it tries to move, I can't find it, tried searching 'Victorian aeroplane fail animated gif' and all kinds of shit]

[Norton Canes]

Hang on, here it is.



The Gerhardt Cycleplane.

[Norton Canes]

Ah no wait I've fucked up there, 1923, turns out it actually flew. Live and learn huh.

[Norton Canes]

I think this is a more accurate representation

[Wonderful Butternut]

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

[chveik]

perfect!

[kngen]

When you know things are coming, but they still exceed expectations. Wonderful stuff.

[Bernice]

The blood smear is perfect.

[Pijlstaart]

Would rather my hard-earned taxpayers money go to some sort of emblazoned brexit carriage, perhaps with a tasteful bust of lee rigby on top, that way I know I'm getting my money's worth. I think my issue with a plane is it suggests we've got to go to them, why are we going all the way over to them? We're millwall. They should come here on their knees, they should have to pay £7 for a visa and crawl up to us, with our arms folded, and if they don't give us what we ask then they'll simply have to go back to wherever they've come from. That's how it used to be, the things that make we we.

[Cuntbeaks]

I'm amazed, on an almost daily basis, that this fucking arsehole can outdo himself of the Cunt Scale over and over again without fatigue.

[idunnosomename]

magnificent boz in his shagging machine

[steve98]

I hadn't noticed before but that multi-multi-winged plane does actually manage to get a few inches off the ground (If you look at the wheels you can see it) - It does fly. And maybe, if the pilot - sittin' there in the middle, at the main snapping-point - had been a few stone lighter, it might not have collapsed and stayed in the air a bit longer.

[EDIT] Or, he could have added more wings.

[idunnosomename]

I hadn't noticed before but that multi-multi-winged plane does actually manage to get a few inches off the ground (If you look at the wheels you can see it) - It does fly. And maybe, if the pilot - sittin' there in the middle, at the main snapping-point - had been a few stone lighter, it might not have collapsed and stayed in the air a bit longer.

are you calling him fat? seems a bit mean

[Voltan (Man of Steel)]

Come on, you can imagine him arriving at a state function in this, can't you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM7HHB51WX8

[steve98]

are you calling him fat? seems a bit mean

That's as maybe.
I've edited my post to suggest he should have considered adding more wings. More wings and a lighter pilot (maybe someone with no legs like that RAF Air Marshall guy) and it could have been a success (maybe even a commercial success, with the right type of light customers)

[Fambo Number Mive]

Guardian reports:

Boris Johnson's red, white and blue paint job on the prime ministerial plane is costing the UK taxpayer £900,000, his official spokesman has said.

The spokesman confirmed that the RAF Voyager, previously grey-coloured, is in Cambridgeshire for a makeover.

"The RAF Voyager used by the royal family and the PM is currently in Cambridgeshire for pre-planned repainting. This will mean that the plane can better represent the UK around the world with national branding, which will be in line with many other leaders' planes," he said...

I'm not sure if they mean it was already planned to repaint it anyway, but I would imagine it would be a lot cheaper to have given it another coat of grey paint.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Lots of gammons with little union flags in their Twitter handles.happy because it upsets "the left and the BBC". Like Trump, Johnsons base will support him no matter what he does. No doubt the same people cheering on spunking £900k on a paint job supported austerity.

[steveh]

Have I got it right that this plane is part of the refuelling fleet? And by making this change it can't be used for that anymore? So it will end up costing even more than 900 grand?

[Kryton]

Hang on, here it is.



The Gerhardt Cycleplane.

Even with the advantage of decades of hindsight, they were clearly taking the piss with the Gerhardt Cycleplane.

[Dr Trouser]

Have I got it right that this plane is part of the refuelling fleet? And by making this change it can't be used for that anymore? So it will end up costing even more than 900 grand?

I don't really want to be the voice of reason, but planes need to be repainted regularly otherwise they're not airworthy (e.g paint forms part of the lightning protection scheme). Looks like this was due a repaint and Bozza's gone 'fuck that, i want a custom west coast job' - cost of grey is the same as UNYUN JACK, so overall it doesn't make any difference.

He does however have no sense of timing, proportion, public feeling, dress sense, etc etc

[badaids]

I don't really want to be the voice of reason, but planes need to be repainted regularly otherwise they're not airworthy (e.g paint forms part of the lightning protection scheme). Looks like this was due a repaint and Bozza's gone 'fuck that, i want a custom west coast job' - cost of grey is the same as UNYUN JACK, so overall it doesn't make any difference.

He does however have no sense of timing, proportion, public feeling, dress sense, etc etc

They do need to be repainted occasionally, but who knows when the next scheduled respray was.

The fact is that the RAF VIP transport is normally carried out by 32 Sqn and its 4 BAe146s.  Two of those are VIP fit and already painted up in a modest white livery with the union jack on it.  Johnson will have seen a lot of those as Foreign Sec.  But it's an old airframe and the range is not great, the voyager is a long range transport and can get you to africa, asia, caribbean in one go.

So what this really means is that if you consider it in the context alongside the FCO/DFID merger, it's going to be used on long range prestige trips around the world by him and Raab to lobby small countries in trade or lose UK foreign aid, and as a photo op backdrop.

Agree on the point about timing and public feeling but I think it's clear this administration don't have much of a care for that.

[MojoJojo]

Have I got it right that this plane is part of the refuelling fleet? And by making this change it can't be used for that anymore? So it will end up costing even more than 900 grand?

It was already converted in 2015 by Cameron. It cost £10 million to convert, but saves £700,000 in commercial flight costs. Apparently it was dual purpose, being used to refuel planes for the RAF when not ferrying ministers around, but that sounds bonkers. Do they put the ministers in the empty fuel tanks or something?

But yes, the real criticism seems to be that the repaint destroys the dual-purpose idea - but I wonder if that was only fiction anyway.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

How many hospital beds would £900,000 buy?

[Sherringford Hovis]

Hospital beds are a bit 'how long is a piece of string' as costs vary hugely depending on their specialist allocation.

39 newly qualified nurses at £23k pa. comes in just shy of £900,000.

My neighbour that painted planes an an RAF dude (That was his whole job. Plane painting for nearly 20 years.) reckons it typically costs about £100-150K for an aircraft of this sort. Maybe they're getting Banksy to do it.

[buzby]

It was already converted in 2015 by Cameron. It cost £10 million to convert, but saves £700,000 in commercial flight costs. Apparently it was dual purpose, being used to refuel planes for the RAF when not ferrying ministers around, but that sounds bonkers. Do they put the ministers in the empty fuel tanks or something?

But yes, the real criticism seems to be that the repaint destroys the dual-purpose idea - but I wonder if that was only fiction anyway.

The Voyagers are Airbus A330MRTTs leased from AirTanker UK. They replaced the Vickers VC-10 and Lockheed TriStar dual-purpose tanker/transport fleets in RAF service. It is based on the long-range A330-200, so it can carry 111,000 kg of fuel in the standard fuel tanks without requiring any additional tanks to be fitted, and can also carry up to 43,000kg of cargo in the existing cargo compartments at the same time. That gives the capacity to fly 4,000km, refuel six fighter aircraft en-route, and carry 43 tons of non-fuel cargo. The cabin area can be stripped out to provide extra cargo capacity.

Part of the lease aggreement with AirTanker UK was that if the airframes were not in use by the RAF, they could be leased out to commercial operators, so all the military refuelling, avionics and communications systems were designed to be removable (at least one was leased out to the now-defunct Thomas Cook Air). Obviously, having one permanently kitted out as a VIP aircraft, and now in some patriotic livery, means it can't be leased out to anyone else so we will presumably be paying AirTanker UK more money to take that one out of the 'pool' of aircraft that can be sub-leased. A non-camouflage livery also means that it cannot be used on operations either (though it will probably still be used as a tanker in everyday training flights, when knobhead or the Royals aren't using it).

The 'Royal Flight' 32 Squadron used to have access to 10 VC-10 Tanker/Transport aircraft belonging to 10 Squadron for the VIP role, but 10 Squadron was scrapped by the RAF in 2001 due to budget cuts, with long-range VIP flights moving to charters from British Airways.

[jobotic]

Gobe's Nazi books, Cumming's press conference - they are painting this plane like this because what you gonna do about it? We won.