The lighter side of Flight International.

Truck and awe

We couldn’t let US President Donald Trump’s clandestine departure from the NATO Summit in Ankara earlier this year go unrecorded, given the unorthodox nature of his travel switcheroo.

Having arrived in Turkey aboard his new VC-25B Bridge aircraft – a Boeing 747-8 gifted by the government of Qatar and modified for Air Force One duties at a taxpayer cost of around $400 million – the leader of the free world boarded with his entourage as the defence summit concluded.

But in a plot twist befitting a president who wants to award himself a Congressional Medal of Honor for acts of valour, Trump was clandestinely transferred to an accompanying VC-25A – an outdated 747-200 – via a ground catering truck, amid fears of an assassination attempt by Iran.

What, we asked, should the callsign be for such a vehicle when conveying the US commander in chief? After rejecting a likely menu item of ‘Big Mac’, we settled on the chicken-inspired ‘TACO One’ instead.

More VIP fun was to follow in late September, when Trump proudly showed off the White House’s new South Lawn helipad to his Chinese counterpart Xi Xinping. Featuring a carved granite presidential seal, the structure – paid for by Sikorsky – means US Marine Corps VH-92 ‘Patriot’ transports can at last land there without their engines scorching the grass.

No BIAS

According to a release from the organiser, due to events in the Gulf, the eighth edition of the Bahrain International Airshow (BIAS) is not being cancelled but rescheduled to November 2028, which… er… is the date the ninth edition of the biennial event was due to take place anyway.

Florida mis-Keys

Embraer recently announced a deal with lessor Azorra for a bunch of extra E-Jet E2s. Accompanying the release were the usual selection of images, one with the following caption: “Miami Beach scene from drone, Florida, USA. Miami seaside. Aerial view of Miami Beach and cityscape. Coastline of Miami Beach, aerial view. Famous American landmarks. Summer travel in USA.”

More Rio than Key Largo. Source: Embraer

Has anyone informed US President Donald Trump about this blatant Middle Eastern interloper from Latin America, seemingly promising redemption?

Start cart tart-up

Fancy owning “one of the most unusual pieces of aviation ground support equipment ever built”?

That’s how its seller, aircraft trading outfit Flight Asset, describes a classic, sixties-era Volkswagen split-window camper van, originally operated by Lufthansa at Frankfurt airport as a mobile auxiliary power unit “start cart”.

The company calls the vehicle a “restoration project” – both the van and the Garrett Germany GTC85-90 gas turbine APU require work to return them to operational condition. However, it promises a revamped version would form the “centrepiece of any aviation collection” and “guarantee attention at your next aviation or classic vehicle event. There is simply nothing else quite like it”.

The German manufacturer built the T1 model – which with its distinctive split windscreen became an icon of the Sixties counterculture movement – between 1949 and 1967.

Fast talking

Does anyone really care about how fast business jets have flown on a set route on a certain day? The OEMs seem to, and oneupmanship appears to have taken over their PR departments.

Not long after the Farnborough air show, a press release stated that “Gulfstream reclaims city pair speed record” with an 8h 27min flight from Los Angeles to Farnborough on a G700. The announcement did not mention its arch-competitor, Bombardier.During Farnborough (which Gulfstream sat out, although its prominently branded maintenance hangar facing the show site served as a giant billboard), Bombardier announced that its Global 8000 had set a new speed record by flying from LA to the UK airport in 8h 46min.

US President Donald Trump must have been thrilled. In a Truth Social post threatening to ban Bombardier from selling jets in the US, he lambasted the Canadian manufacturer: “Their products aren’t good enough!”

Squawk-ward

We spied the mangled typo pictured below during a TV report on the recent air traffic control chaos in the UK. ITV News subsequently seemed to have declared an emergency and fixed it on online clips.

Spelling trouble. Source: ITV News

From yuckspeak to tales of yore, send your offcuts to murdo.morrison@flightglobal.com

From the archive

1926 From Oz to Thames

The flight to Australia and back, Mr. Cobham said, had demonstrated that Great Britain was not decadent. The spirit of adventure that looked to the heights, and the secret of mastery that achieved them, were still part of our national heritage. Cobham’s landing on the capital river of the Empire after his pioneering flight will rank among the historic moments of our national story. Mr. Cobham said it had been in his mind ever since he started that when he got back he would like to land on the Thames, if only in order to show the British public that flying was not such a stunt as some people thought it was. The flight to Australia was no stunt, he said. It was done to try to find out what they could, they had found out a lot in the face of severe difficulties.

1951 Ready to eject

In the Martin-Baker seat, this country unquestionably has an exceptionally efficient pilot-safety device – if the Russians have a better ejector seat, we do not know of it. But brilliant an engineer as James Martin is, even his ingenuity is not capable of doing the impossible. There are certain essential pre-requisites that, in the present state of knowledge, cannot be met in any other form. Some aircraft are capable of being equipped with ejector seats, others are not; but this has no bearing on the tenet that every future service aircraft except, perhaps, primary trainers, heavy transports and helicopters, should be fitted with such means of escape. This means that the aircraft have to be designed from the very first for the inclusion of ejector seats: a policy which has long been overdue.

1976 Decompression risk

The largest modification programme ever required by an aviation agency is designed to improve the ability of wide-bodied aircraft to withstand rapid decompression. On March 3, 1974, a THY DC-10 crashed 12min out of Paris when an 18 sq ft cargo door opened at 13,000ft. What is believed to have happened is that the cabin floor collapsed under the sudden load imposed when the cargo hold depressurised beneath the still-pressurised passenger compartment. This failure probably severed control lines, rendering the aircraft uncontrollable. Last year the FAA published an airworthiness directive requiring that widebodies be able to survive the appearance of a 20 sq ft hole, and the deadline for the necessary notifications was set for the end of June 1977.

2001 ANZ renationalised

The New Zealand government is to renationalise Air New Zealand (ANZ), buying back around 83% of the carrier in a controversial rescue package injecting up to NZ$885 million ($362 million) to save it from bankruptcy. The airline was privatised in 1989. The loan and equity investment plan was thrashed out between the government, the airline and its major shareholders Brierley Investments, which has a 35% holding, and Singapore Airlines with 25%. Subject to shareholder and regulatory approval, an initial government loan of NZ$300 million will later be repaid and converted to shares at NZ$0.24, with a second payment of NZ$585 million for ordinary shares later. Finance minister Michael Cullen said the NZ$300 million would be made available as soon as possible.

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