> Liz Truss and Boris Johnson flew to their appointments with the Queen in Scotland today on two French-made Dassault 900LX business jets, which replaced British-designed and manufactured BAe 146 aircraft when they were retired earlier this year.
> At one point more than 20,000 people were monitoring the outgoing Prime Minster’s flight to Aberdeen on flight tracking website FlightRadar24.
> Known as “Envoy IV,” the two French-made aircraft were purchased by the Royal Air Force for £80 million to carry VIP passengers including members of the Royal Family and senior members of the government and military, and are based at RAF Northolt with the No 32 (The Royal) Squadron.
> Senior government and military officials have previously travelled on BAe 146 aircraft, which were operated for four decades from the 1980s until being retired in March 2022. They were sometimes nicknamed “the flying pig.”
> The Ministry of Defence said it chose the French-made aircraft because the 900LX is a “more sustainable aircraft” and can “fly further, faster, and more sustainably than the aircraft it replaces.” The Falcons, as the planes are known, were bought in an “open tender against various other business aircraft models,” according to an RAF spokesperson.
> The Falcon 900LX produces about 3,157 kilograms of CO2 for an hour-long flight, roughly the length of the journey from RAF Northolt to Aberdeen. Truss and Johnson took separate aircraft, bringing the total CO2 emissions to approximately 12,628 kilograms for two round trips.
> That’s equivalent to the average petrol car’s greenhouse gas emissions on 70 round trip journeys to Glasgow from London.
> Dassault Aviation S.A. is currently the only major maker of business jets in Europe and its Falcon 900LX type has a trijet design that can carry up to 14 passengers in comfort over 4,750 nautical miles (8,800km), enough range to fly from London to Chicago or Mumbai without stopping.
> The two Envoy IV aircraft are currently operating in a civilian specification with mixed RAF and civilian crew under contract with private jet charter company Centreline Aviation. The RAF plans to upgrade them with military modifications and communications within two years.
> Centreline Aviation offers a similar Dassault 8x model for charter that includes leather seats that convert to lie-flat beds and in-flight internet connectivity, although it’s not known how the Envoy IV aircraft are equipped.
> Those features were not seen on the British designed and made BAe 146, which was manufactured in the UK by British Aerospace, which later became part of today’s BAE Systems.
> That aircraft has four turbofan engines, derived from Chinook helicopter engines, which were innovative for its time for producing low levels of noise. The BAe 146 originally replaced the Queen’s Flight Andover turboprop-powered aircraft in 1983.
> Two of the four retired BAe 146 aircraft have been donated to museums in Duxford, to the north of London, and St Athan in Wales. The other two aircraft have been sold to civilian operators.
The aircraft’s registrations are G-ZABH and G-ZAHS.
Prince William flew yesterday from Aberdeen to London in G-ZABH whilst King Charles flew in a chartered Embraer Legacy G-LEGC.
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Since it”s behind a paywall:
> Liz Truss and Boris Johnson flew to their appointments with the Queen in Scotland today on two French-made Dassault 900LX business jets, which replaced British-designed and manufactured BAe 146 aircraft when they were retired earlier this year.
> At one point more than 20,000 people were monitoring the outgoing Prime Minster’s flight to Aberdeen on flight tracking website FlightRadar24.
> Known as “Envoy IV,” the two French-made aircraft were purchased by the Royal Air Force for £80 million to carry VIP passengers including members of the Royal Family and senior members of the government and military, and are based at RAF Northolt with the No 32 (The Royal) Squadron.
> Senior government and military officials have previously travelled on BAe 146 aircraft, which were operated for four decades from the 1980s until being retired in March 2022. They were sometimes nicknamed “the flying pig.”
> The Ministry of Defence said it chose the French-made aircraft because the 900LX is a “more sustainable aircraft” and can “fly further, faster, and more sustainably than the aircraft it replaces.” The Falcons, as the planes are known, were bought in an “open tender against various other business aircraft models,” according to an RAF spokesperson.
> The Falcon 900LX produces about 3,157 kilograms of CO2 for an hour-long flight, roughly the length of the journey from RAF Northolt to Aberdeen. Truss and Johnson took separate aircraft, bringing the total CO2 emissions to approximately 12,628 kilograms for two round trips.
> That’s equivalent to the average petrol car’s greenhouse gas emissions on 70 round trip journeys to Glasgow from London.
> Dassault Aviation S.A. is currently the only major maker of business jets in Europe and its Falcon 900LX type has a trijet design that can carry up to 14 passengers in comfort over 4,750 nautical miles (8,800km), enough range to fly from London to Chicago or Mumbai without stopping.
> The two Envoy IV aircraft are currently operating in a civilian specification with mixed RAF and civilian crew under contract with private jet charter company Centreline Aviation. The RAF plans to upgrade them with military modifications and communications within two years.
> Centreline Aviation offers a similar Dassault 8x model for charter that includes leather seats that convert to lie-flat beds and in-flight internet connectivity, although it’s not known how the Envoy IV aircraft are equipped.
> Those features were not seen on the British designed and made BAe 146, which was manufactured in the UK by British Aerospace, which later became part of today’s BAE Systems.
> That aircraft has four turbofan engines, derived from Chinook helicopter engines, which were innovative for its time for producing low levels of noise. The BAe 146 originally replaced the Queen’s Flight Andover turboprop-powered aircraft in 1983.
> Two of the four retired BAe 146 aircraft have been donated to museums in Duxford, to the north of London, and St Athan in Wales. The other two aircraft have been sold to civilian operators.
The aircraft’s registrations are G-ZABH and G-ZAHS.
Prince William flew yesterday from Aberdeen to London in G-ZABH whilst King Charles flew in a chartered Embraer Legacy G-LEGC.
There is also the quite new [Airbus A321neo G-GBNI](https://www.planespotters.net/photo/1287236/g-gbni-government-of-the-united-kingdom-airbus-a321-253nx) which is chartered from Titan Airways. Built in Hamburg, Germany though.
With a fast train the trip would be just 3 hours. 650 km / 200 km/h = 3.25 hours.
If you would build one of course. Can’t have that of course, that’s socialism.
The jet needs about 1 hour, plus departure time it would be about 3 hours, too.
am I missing something? Who cares where the planes were built?
And German trains are transporting Charles, 🇪🇺🇩🇪🇫🇷🇬🇧