Recently, US aerospace group Boeing announced that a VIP version of the com- pany’s 777-300ER wide-body airliner had been ordered by a customer whose identity was confidential. Boeing refers to this version of the aircraft as the 777-300ER BBJ, BBJ standing for Boeing Business Jet. It is believed to be only the second order for this aircraft, the first 777-300ER BBJ having been delivered in 2011 to Abu Dhabi. It is operated by that country’s VIP flight.

The Boeing 777-300ER BBJ is a big aircraft, with a cabin area of 338 m2 and a range of 17 000 km. Little wonder that Boeing Business Jets division president Steve Taylor told the Flightglobal website that “the BBJ 777-300ER is an airplane that really provides unmatched comfort and range on long-haul flights”.

Now, back in 2012, it was widely reported in South Africa that government intended to acquire a BBJ version of a Boeing 777 (although not of the -300ER model) to serve as a VIP transport for President Jacob Zuma. Currently, the country’s VIP aircraft fleet is headed by a much smaller (but still respectable) Boeing 737 BBJ. (VIP transport is the responsibility of the South African Air Force’s 21 Squadron.)

Nothing seemed to come of that, but now this announcement by Boeing makes one think – could this aircraft be for South Africa? Hopefully, not. Not merely because of the huge cost and extravagance involved, but because acquiring and using such a big and luxurious aircraft to fly to major international summits will, to put it bluntly, make Zuma a laughing stock. Oh, of course, people would be polite and diplomatic to his face, but, in private, the remarks would be caustic.

The Texans apparently have a saying: big hat, no cattle – meaning that there is no substance behind an outwardly impressive appearance. While a 777-300ER BBJ would look impressive painted in South African colours and parked on the tarmac of a foreign airport or air base, everyone would be very aware of the lack of substance behind it. A country that has lost its number one status in Africa. A country with a relatively declining economy. A country with a woefully inadequate educational system performance. A country whose Defence Force has an alarmingly low level of operational capability.

Of course, South Africa is rather a long way away from the locations of most international summits. And, although the 737 BBJ should be perfectly comfortable for the President himself, it has limited space for any accompanying Ministers, staff, business people and, yes, journalists. So what should be done?

One option, of course, is, when possible, use scheduled air flights. Worldwide, this is rare but far from unheard of. A second is to charter a wide-body airliner from the national airline, with the President flying first class, the Ministers business class, and the rest economy class. Cabins can be reconfigured within a day or so, allowing the installation of a bed, additional partitions and so on. This is how a number of countries do things.

If, for various reasons, you want the aircraft to be military (if I remember correctly, military aircraft, like naval vessels, are always sovereign territory, whereas civil aircraft, like merchant ships, are not), then one could use multirole aircraft. There are two main options in this regard. One is to have aircraft with palletised roll-on/roll-off VIP and alternative mission suites. These can, within a few hours, be rerolled from, say, surveillance or transport to the VIP role, and vice verse. The other is to fit a VIP cabin to an air-to-air refuelling tanker.

This latter approach was that taken by Brazil for intercontinental Presidential air travel for many years. While flights within South America and Brazil are undertaken using dedicated VIP aircraft (most of which are now designed and built in Brazil), flights to other continents were, for some 20 years, undertaken by one of the Brazilian Air Force’s four KC-137 (Boeing 707) tanker aircraft, fitted with a VIP cabin. It seems likely that one of the three KC-767 tankers now being acquired by Brazil will be similarly outfitted. (The KC-767 is a Boeing 767 airliner converted into the tanker/transport role by, in the case of Brazil, Israel Aircraft Industries.)

The South African Air Force badly needs to re-establish its air-to-air refuelling capability, lost when its four Boeing 707 tanker transports were retired without replacement in 2007. (South Africa never used the designations KC-137 or KC-707.) Imagine a programme to acquire three modern multirole tanker transport aircraft (whether new build or, as in the case of Brazil, second-hand aircraft), restoring a key strategic capability to the country. Imagine obtaining a modular VIP suite, that could be moved from aircraft to aircraft, as required by maintenance schedules. Two birds killed with one stone.

Moreover, pitching up at a summit meeting in what would very obviously be a frontline (although not combat) aircraft could increase Zuma’s credibility; it most certainly would not undermine it, nor make him a figure of fun. It would certainly signal that he was getting to grips with at least some of the country’s weaknesses and that his administration was concerned about getting value for money. Such a tanker/transport aircraft would be a big, wide-body aircraft, but its genuine military role would mean that it would not appear ridiculously over the top as a dedicated VIP Boeing 777-300ER BBJ would.