Air Farce One

[steveh]

Thanks to everyone for filling in the gaps in the story. More vanity spending by Johnson that when you did deeper ends up costing way more than it first appears.

[MojoJojo]

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.

Thanks Buzby, I guess the mental image I had of refueling planes having the hull completely full of fuel wasn't very realistic.

[Zetetic]

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

Won't get a nurse for £23k pa. either.

Salary starts at £25k now, but more importantly you've got to pay employer's NI and pension contribution - both of which are at least 10% each IIRC. (14%? They've soaked up a surprising amount of NHS funding increases over the last 6 decades.) And then they're on holiday or sick or training (well, in theory) a fair amount of the time.

You'd struggle to actually get 1 WTE working on a ward of a newly qualified nurse for much less than £40k, I reckon - it's just that the nurse doesn't see quite a lot of that.

[Sherringford Hovis]

Won't get a nurse for £23k pa. either.

Salary starts at £25k now

Good to know - I can mock them for being overpaid when I'm up A&E later with me gouty feet. Bloody nurses, rolling in all their money.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Won't get a nurse for £23k pa. either.

Salary starts at £25k now, but more importantly you've got to pay employer's NI and pension contribution - both of which are at least 10% each IIRC. (14%? They've soaked up a surprising amount of NHS funding increases over the last 6 decades.) And then they're on holiday or sick or training (well, in theory) a fair amount of the time.

You'd struggle to actually get 1 WTE working on a ward of a newly qualified nurse for much less than £40k, I reckon - it's just that the nurse doesn't see quite a lot of that.

£900k would still get you 22.5 nurses. If you absolutely MUST paint the plane then get Sherringford Hovis's neighbour to do it. 150k to paint the plane still leaves 750k, or 18.75 nurses.

Or 18-37 ventilators, depending on how nice they are.

[dissolute ocelot]

Other mad dictators seem to manage with very restrained paint jobs. Many (e.g. Turkey) just use normal planes of their flag carriers, and the Pope uses an Al Italia jet.

Putin's special jet is branded with the normal Rossiya airline logos although it apparently has gold bathroom fittings and other mad shit. Probably some kind of stables for his horse, maybe a shooting range, MMA octagon, space laser?


Saudi Arabia:


Brazil


The Norwegian royal family and Prime Minister use commercial flights. But it's important that Britain shows the world we are in no way in the midst of a cataclysmic recession and have oodles of money, enough to put huge visages of every member of the Royal Family past and present (except Harry and Meghan) 20 feet high over the world's military airfields and evil lairs.

[Jittlebags]

Our part time PM doesn't need a plane. Just a fucking clown's car.

[buzby]

Other mad dictators seem to manage with very restrained paint jobs. Many (e.g. Turkey) just use normal planes of their flag carriers, and the Pope uses an Al Italia jet.

Putin's special jet is branded with the normal Rossiya airline logos although it apparently has gold bathroom fittings and other mad shit. Probably some kind of stables for his horse, maybe a shooting range, MMA octagon, space laser?

The Norwegian royal family and Prime Minister use commercial flights. But it's important that Britain shows the world we are in no way in the midst of a cataclysmic recession and have oodles of money, enough to put huge visages of every member of the Royal Family past and present (except Harry and Meghan) 20 feet high over the world's military airfields and evil lairs.

It's been noted over on the Pprune Military Aircrew forum at VIP jets with special liveries are usually the preserve of tinpot dictators who want to show off. Opinon is split roughly 50/50 over there between 'pointless waste of money, reducing the availability of a much-needed tanker' (usually the people still serving) and 'Creamy Old England! The Emipire shall rise again! Three cheers for Boris! GET BREXIT DONE!' (usually the Torygraph-reading retired old duffers, who want it painted in the old RAF Transport Command scheme from the 60s).

[Sherringford Hovis]

If I were Boris, I'd be insisting on the tried-and-trusted black sides, camo top - that'd really get his supporters priapic, especially now he's killed more people than died in the Blitz. And look - it almost says "knob" on it. Everyone's happy.

[Blinder Data]

This is probably a very unpopular opinion but I reckon a plane made with specific requirements for government representatives is an entirely reasonable idea. Obviously when put against all the other heinous cuts the Tories have introduced, this paintjob seems egregious. However, Johnson is much happier splashing the cash so he won't see the hypocrisy.

Apparently the plane doesn't even have WiFi because Cameron was scared of the cost, and the paintjob will put it out of action for other functions. I find this half-baked approach to UK government facilities more displeasing, personally.

[sovietrussia]

The paint job costs should be subtracted from the aircraft's existing maintenance/safety budget, given its massive importance.  Nothing sums up the zeitgeist of the UK in the 2020s quite like "catastrophic engine failure".

[buzby]

The paint job costs should be subtracted from the aircraft's existing maintenance/safety budget, given its massive importance.  Nothing sums up the zeitgeist of the UK in the 2020s quite like "catastrophic engine failure".

The A330MRTT Voyagers are leased from AirTanker UK. The annual fee we pay under the lease agreement covers mainentance for the entire fleet. Any requirements that aren't covered by the lease, like Cameron's VIP conversion and now Boris' flashy paintjob all have to be paid for as extras outside the agreement.

[Buelligan]

They can paint it whatever colour they like as long as it falls out of the sky like a fucking stone. 

[Blumf]

I think Virgin Atlantic are retiring their 747 fleet. Johnson could have one of them, they've already got the union jack paintwork, what with the sexy lady flying the flag. All that'd need doing is over-painting the word 'Virgin' with 'Clapped-out Shagger'

[Dr Trouser]

after all that it ends up looking like a BA flight

https://twitter.com/johnestevens/status/1276144119312789512

what a missed opportunity.

[Jittlebags]

Urgh. Imagine the smell of nappies and stale spunk onboard once he and his 'family' have had a few flights.

[buzby]

after all that it ends up looking like a BA flight

https://twitter.com/johnestevens/status/1276144119312789512

what a missed opportunity.

Video of it taxiing and the takeoff from Marshalls at Cambridge here. It looks really tacky, with the UNITED KINGDOM along the fuselage in gold. The tail number and RAF logo not being aligned with it looks bad too, and they have had to mask out part of the red so that the Scotchlite formation markers on the sides of the fusalge near the tal can still be seen (not that this is going to be used much for tanking from now on).

Just as it rotates a large piece of masking material gets blown off the port side too, so the £900k obviously didn't cover a post-paintjob check (and the pilots must not have been paying attention during the pre-flight walkaround check either).

[shiftwork2]

Despite loving all things aviation, this 'magnificent men in their flying machines' stuff is curiously shit-wrenchingly tedious to the point that I'm actually fearful of the grinding tedium to come as Dad decides we're watching it.

[Fr.Bigley]

Con air.

[steveh]

Saw something yesterday that a chunk of the £900K was spent on interior improvements but can't find the article now and another piece says nothing inside has changed.

[BlodwynPig]

Saw something yesterday that a chunk of the £900K was spent on interior improvements but can't find the article now and another piece says nothing inside has changed.

Just a cocaine dispenser.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Apparently the plane doesn't even have WiFi because Cameron was scared of the cost, and the paintjob will put it out of action for other functions. I find this half-baked approach to UK government facilities more displeasing, personally.

I wouldn't have thought wifi would be that expensive for the plain itself. It's where the plain gets the internet from. I suppose they have just bought a bankrupt satellite internet firm with the intention of bending it into a navigation system because Brexit will lose access to the military parts of Galileo.

[buzby]

Saw something yesterday that a chunk of the £900K was spent on interior improvements but can't find the article now and another piece says nothing inside has changed.

The £900k was purely for the repaint at Marshall's secure hangar in Cambridge Airport, and came out of the MoD's budget. The interior refit cost £10m in 2016 under David Cameron. Some people are confusing the VIP Voyager (RAF serial no. ZZ336, "Vespina") with the A330 Voyager from the 'surge' fleet that was leased to Thomas Cook (and later their German subsidiary Condor) as an A330. That went into storage at Frankfurt when TC went bankrupt.

Fourteen A330MRTT aircraft were part of the lease deal with Air Tanker UK (RAF serials ZZ330-ZZ343), The deal was that there would be 9 of these aircraft operated by the RAF under normal circumstances, and the other 5 would be a 'surge' fleet that would be used by the RAF if required for operations, but normally would be cross-leased by Air Tanker to civil operators as normal Airbus A330s (as well as their RAF registrations, they all have UK civil registrations G-VYGA to G-VYGN).

One of the Voyagers (G-VYGK) was leased to now bankrupt Thomas Cook Airways for holiday charter flights and two are leased to Jet2 (G-VYGL & G-GYGM). The fifth 'surge' aircraft ended up having to be taken up by the RAF to cover the operational duties of the VIP-converted ZZ336.

I wouldn't have thought wifi would be that expensive for the plain itself. It's where the plain gets the internet from. I suppose they have just bought a bankrupt satellite internet firm with the intention of bending it into a navigation system because Brexit will lose access to the military parts of Galileo.

It was purely a cost issue. It was going to cost an additional £2m on top of the £10m cost of the VIP refit in 2016 to include an inflight entertainment system, so it wasn't done. It would also have probably led to additional maintenance costs with the IFE system being outside the PFI contracted maintenance schedule too. If you want in-flight internet you go to Inmarsat and get their GX Aviation satellite relay package. If you want it secure you just run a VPN over it (Inmarsat supply the satellite broadband services for the US DoD).

[Gurke and Hare]

(usually the Torygraph-reading retired old duffers, who want it painted in the old RAF Transport Command scheme from the 60s).

With a French flag on the tail? I don't think so, Monsieur Delors!

[buzby]

With a French flag on the tail? I don't think so, Monsieur Delors!

The red stripe of the fin flash always points to the leading edge on both sides of the tail. The Armée de l'Air have a tricolore fin flash with the  the blue bar towards the leading edge.

[Sebastian Cobb]

If you want in-flight internet you go to Inmarsat and get their GX Aviation satellite relay package. If you want it secure you just run a VPN over it (Inmarsat supply the satellite broadband services for the US DoD).

Do the US not use cell towers pointed skywards on domestic flights? Obviously that's not really worth doing for our short domestic flights and impossible for international flights.

[buzby]

Do the US not use cell towers pointed skywards on domestic flights? Obviously that's not really worth doing for our short domestic flights and impossible for international flights.

There are 2 systems - LTE mobile broadband based over land (particularly in the US with the GoGo network) and satellite based. As you say ,the mobile broadband system is useless on transoceanic flights, and as the Voyager is a long-haul airliner it would need the satellite system.

[Jittlebags]

Saw something yesterday that a chunk of the £900K was spent on interior improvements but can't find the article now and another piece says nothing inside has changed.

Probably got a sex swing installed.

[daimoniac]

https://youtu.be/wU4w1KqwhEg