BBJ

To me that has the appearance of a standard type PATS or Winters airstair just installed in the lower lobe. These stairs are built to order and made for different aircraft types to accommodate the distance from the floor to the ground.

Here is some information on airstairs from one of the current companies that make them. Aerocon Engineering Company - Air Stairs & Crew Ladders

Jeff

 

Great video on the E4 but the first 30 seconds walk you up the stairs into the cargo hold and then up to the main level.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maZdUtB0ojs

 

As I watched that video and found more pictures, it looks like AF1 has another set of stairs for the rear cargo hold behind the wings on the left side, too.

The E-4 configuration is interesting with front and rear stairs to the lower lobes, not just hatches and ladders.

 

It does - that's where staff boards - potus goes up the forward steps.

 

Very interesting.

 

What is the status of the E4 these days?

 

All 4 of them are based at Offutt AFB, Omaha, Nebraska.

 

Yep! They fly over my office all the time.

 

Jeff - you're needed here...

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/silver-subscribed-private-forum/437536-now-private-jet.html

 

Thanks for letting me know.

A lot of statements with limited tidbits of truth.

Prince Walid bin Talal al Saud has a 747-400. Those are the pictures of a real interior. With great fanfare at a Dubai Airshow some years back Walid and Airbus announced that Waid had laced an order for an A380. Walid never completed the order and does not have an A380. The 380 has airport issues that are even worse than for a 747; which is already bad.

Airbus was trying to hype how the 380 was going to be such a fabulous head of state aircraft. Which is to say that they were targeting the Middle East market. What has occurred is that those who would have been 380 buyers have instead signed up for 747-8s. One of those is in outfitting with a completion date of sometime this year. At least 2 more come out of Boeing this year to go in for VIP conversions. If I remember correctly Boeing has been saying publicly something like 8 VIP orders for 747-8s.

Bob: Boeing did a few VIP interiors themselves. At least one 707, the Thailand 737-200 and the Saudi SP; likely a couple more. Boeing lost so much money that they stopped doing it. "The Boeing way" just s not conducive to one offs. When the US government got the now current 747-200s for Air Force 1 Boeing again tried to handle the outfitting themselves by way of Boeing Military Aircraft Company in Wichita. Massively late and massive losses but Boeing got to say that they did it. Wichita even tried again with the Air Force 757s (sometimes called Air Force 2) and Boeing and whomever did the design and engineering should be embarrassed for how bad those interiors looked. They at least did get redone to something respectable during Clinton's term.

Someone questioned the operating theater on the 747s. The Saudi 747-300 has a full operating room capable of open heart surgery. It also has a satellite link to the hospital in Cleveland. There is a genetic heart issue with a lot of Saudis. It can be corrected at birth but the older ones just live with it. There is a "live donor" that travels with the King. It is considered an honor to be selected for the duty but it only last a finite amount of time. After that the person is set up for the rest of their life. To the best of my knowledge no one has ever had to make the sacrifice; question of the successor King would even want it to happen.

The Saudi 757 is more than just an operating hospital. Here are some pictures.

Air Force One was originally going to have an operating room but in the end got a place to carry a casket.
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Supersonic VIP aircraft. This continues to be worked on by several folks. Aeron keeps working on it with Bass brothers money hoping to find an OEM that will buy the design. Gulfstream has been working an assortment of studies for years. Dassault too.

There are multiple problems:

Any aircraft will be hugely expensive.

The sonic boom issue has yet to be solved. Studies with nose spikes that extend and retract have been/are being done but they are still a ways off.

If one can't fly over land at supersonic speeds then regular usage is not possible.

Supersonic flight uses a bunch of fuel so although fast the range is not up to G-5, Global, BBJ standards.

With all this the concept remains in perpetual "study".

Jeff

 

So, is the fuel still as big an issue if the plane can supercruise? That would seem to be a requirement.



Also, as I understand it, the 'Spike' decreases but doesn't eliminate the 'boom'... yes/no?

 

Yikes...living donor. That is a scary thought if I was ever called up for something like that.

 

Is the 747-8 that is being completed for Qatar? I believe they had an A330 and had that redone before buying the 747-8

 

Likely but not absolutely certain; a typical suspect though. Saudi Arabia and Brunei are Yes. One or both of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Other usual suspects are Kuwait and Oman.

Air Force One will eventually get 2. May take a while for all the politics to be worked out so an appropriations can be passed. Too bad it will have really sophisticated electronics and a horribly dull interior. The Air Force will pay extra money to have it not look expensive.

 

Hole Lee ****. Jeff Kennedy, you may be my new favorite Fchatter. Can't even believe the knowledge you possess about such an esoteric subject. Sounds like you have had an amazing career so far. You must be highly regarded in this industry. Just wow. Wow.

 

Thanks for all the fawning; swells my head nicely. The better reality is that up until the BBJ coming out the large aircraft group of people and companies was very small. We as a group worked at usually more than one of the companies over the years which then put us in touch with the wider circle. There were not a lot of the aircraft done in a given year and "in the know" folks tended to know which aircraft were with which owners.

The historical facilities for Boeing type VIP aircraft outfitting were:

AiResearch at LAX. This is who did the Khasoggi DC-8. They relocated to Long Beach, can't remember if they did any more big aircraft after the move then were sold to Gulfstream. When they became Gulfstream they stopped doing work on anything but Gulfstream.

Dee Howard at San Antonio. They did a string of the 747s for Saudi Arabia, Oman and Abu Dhabi. Did the A-310 for Brunei; first wide body for the Sultan of what would become a huge fleet of VIP aircraft including multiple wide bodies. Sold to Aeritalia and when the books were fully vetted after the sale it turned out that all those wonderful VIP aircraft hadn't been making money. Changed to doing airline maintenance.

Page Avjet in Orlando. Still going strong in the early 1990s after De Howard and AirResearch had stopped being in the market. An absolute tragedy here as the lace was very profitable and did more large aircraft outfittings annually than anyone else. The original president retired (holding company would not again renew his employment contract) and his replacement was such an idiot and a crook that he managed to kill the company's acceptance in the Middle East; the one market area still doing that class of aircraft at the time. By the time the holding company threw him out it was to late. Unfortunately al this happened about 2 years before the BBJs started which would have changed everything.

Associated Air Center in Dallas. Major player of then and today. Associated had been a bit player in large VIP interiors until the mid 1980s when Roy Gilbreath left Dee Howard and went to Associated as the VP of Sales. [Roy realized that he couldn't sell anything else, including smaller 727 and 737s projects, at Dee with the line of 747s] From then on Associated and Page went head-to-head on projects regularly. At that time Associated was happy to do 1 to 1 1/2 big outfittings a year By comparison Page need to have 3 or more per year to be healthy. As Page went away Associated got a bunch of the industry's work and made substantial expansions.

Jet Aviation in Basel, Switzerland. Jet was the remaining significant player back then and continues today. Back then Jet handled a lot of the work out of the Middle East for those who did not want to come to the US. Jet was also more diversified in their aviation activities with a broader range of aircraft they worked on (few European based Boeing type VIP aircraft) plus flight management and FBOs.

Lufthansa in Hamburg. Contrary to Lufthansa's revisionist history they have been known to spew in the 2000s they were not a real player pre-BBJs. They had done a few VIP interiors for various governments but were mostly known for doing the continuing maintenance for "money is no object" governments. German tax law also allowed for write-off of bribes. They were and are the most expensive. They also had problems because of German labor law - once hired they basically have a job for life. This made t hard to make a business commitment in a market that historically had big highs and droughts.

Waco, Texas. This facility has had a string of names. CTAS, Raytheon and L3 as the most current; likely left out 2 other ownerships. This is really a military house. Their first foray into VIP was the Japanese government air of 747s. Nothing special for the interiors. But this led to being selected by Reese Design to do the Brunei wide bodies. No one ever expected that the Sultan of Brunei would acquire that many aircraft and that each one would be that elaborate of a project. These were massive money makers. By the time that the BBJ was announced the company was owned by Raytheon and they believed that they could do what everyone else experienced in the industry knew was a lie. Raytheon gave me the pitch that they could do 12 to 16 individually custom green BBJs per year. The BBJ office in their infinite wisdom believed that since Raytheon could kill a forest by making reports, Power Points, graphs charts and everything else that reality could be suspended. EPIC FAIL. The kind of fail where the Raytheon financial reports were stating the loss potentials and litigation exposure for the 2 something BBJs in outfitting. Maybe one or two of the very earliest ones were completed without lawsuits. As L3 they are again back in VIP interiors for wide bodies only. We will see how that goes.

There have been a number of other companies back pre-BBJs that came and went. But these were the ones that were around for a while and notable.

 

More photos.
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Does anyone know if Paul Allen downgraded to smaller aircraft in his Gulfstream and Global XRS after selling his 757 to Trump, or did he purchase another heavy to add to his fleet?

 

Downgraded...no more heavy.

 

Inside Saudia 777 (**** video)

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbC_abWUqSo]Private Jet Boeing 777 of Saudi Arabia ????? ???? ????? - YouTube[/ame]

 

Interesting story on that aircraft. Bought new from Boeing along with a 757 and 767. All were being done for an entity of National Commercial Bank, bin Mafous. The 57 and 67 were done at Jet Aviation in Basel. The 777 was done at Raytheon in Waco. All sorts of horrible on getting the project done at Waco - LATE. It was already at Waco getting started when the BBJ outfitting debacle started unfolding. Those problems were then making schedule problems for the 777 too.

During all of this bin Mafous/NCB got into political trouble. The entity for the aircraft got new ownership (along with a BBJ or two). This 777 had to get new ownership under the eye of the Saudi Government and the US government. A US person involved in the project was having to prove to the US govt. that their payments were no longer connected to NCB entities

The original configuration had an area with curved couches surrounding a round dance floor.

Jeff

 

I saw the future presidents BBJ when we flew down for Cavallino a few weeks ago.


That turboprop in the background. That's not a G1 is it?
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Turboprop in picture 1 on the right is a King Air. In the second picture the back right aircraft near the hangar does look to be a G1. Rather amazed that it is still in use. A bunch have been parked and/or broken up. A great cabin and range but just too old and expensive to operate.

Jeff

 

He is prot checking up on trump national Doral. The shop I work at is right down the street. Crazy how much money he is putting in down here.