Well that's... confusing. Thanks a bunch,
LivLuvAndBootlegMusic, but are there any captions for those pics at all (location?!?), 'cause there's a few things that seem a bit odd.
Based on the number on the jet in the last pic, it LOOKS like it'd be N502MG (all the MGM Grand jet serial numbers seem to end in MG, the first number kinda looks like a 5 and the last one looks rather definately like a 2 to me... just a bit of interpretation).
There aren't many pictures of the MGM jets at Airliners.net (which is the biggest aircraft photo database on-line, hence my relying heavily on it), but the one photo of it there during the ZooTV/Zooropa tours places it in Montreal some time during 1993. Some time when the area surrounding the airport was still fairly green, which is probably spring/early summer... It's entirely possible/probable that it was just rented out to another client if U2 weren't using it (since the tours certainly didn't last all year) but it does seem a bit odd. Maybe it's just before the Zooropa tour started, but I'm wondering if it was even used for the European dates at all.
Even more interesting, I can't find any shots of MGM 727's from Europe - they're all at American and Canadian airports. The only photos I can find of MGM planes in Europe are DC-8's.
Also interesting, there's a shot of N503MG in Texas during October 1992, and U2 played a couple of gigs there in that month. Not proof that it was used, but it'd be nice to think that
this was a shot of U2 on their way to a show.
So I guess the question is, did they use a different jet for the European leg? Guess I should re-read Flanigan's book to see what he says.
It IS interesting to note, though, Neil Diamond used N502MG for his last tour. There's a good piece of REALLY obscure U2 trivia to whip out when you want to be an uber geek!
Links:
MGM Grand Air
N502MG
N503MG