Looking for U2 tour jet pics.... anybody?

[Iron Chef MoFo]

Yeah, I know, it's a bit of a long shot... Anyone here have (or know where one might find) some decent shots of any of U2's tour jets - particularly those used during PopMart and tours previous?

Heck, at this point, I'd even be happy with a small, blurry, grainy, out of focus snapshot.

There's got to be SOMEONE out there that's fanatical enough to be interested in the jets they flew.

 

[Sicy]

I have elevation jets.. but nothing before that.

 

[DaveC]

If you wanna see the Popmart jet (inside and out) buy the DVD and watch the "Missing Sarajevo" documentary.

 

[Hawkmoon269]

I don?t remember from where i got this one, but here it is:

 

[Liesje]

here

 

[Sicy]

God where did you find those. I searched the web for like an hour the other nite looking and nothing!

 

[Ultraviolet Light]

From atu2:

I know I had a picture of the popmart jet somewhere... *goes to rummage*

 

[Iron Chef MoFo]

I guess I should have said prior to PopMart; I'm reasonably well covered for the PopMart jet with the DVD and a couple of pics from Willie's Diary.

I think most of the pics here so far were saved from the last go-round on this subject. I'd kind of hoped something might have come to light since then, though. Weren't there ever any pics in Propaganda of U2 arriving at an airport during ZooTV? Lovetown? Joshua Tree? Was there anything on the Achtung Baby Videos/Interference tape? I've got a nagging suspicion that I've seen SOMETHING for ZooTV before, but can't for the life of me remember where or when.

Anyway, there's a number of decent pics of the Elevation jets at Airliners.net:

N724CL - Elevation Air for the North American legs

HB-IIQ - Elevation Air for the European legs

and some pics of N511DB, the jet used during PopMart in different guises

So now that those are pretty well covered, what about other tours?

 

[Liesje]

I've got 8000 pictures on my hard drive and the only ones i've found of the ZooTV plane are from the inside or them getting on and you can't see much of the plane. There is a pic of Bono lying in the grass near some planes, one of the first pages in BP's book, maybe it's one of those? I can scan them if you want to see. Wait, I've just found another real small pic that it might be, I'll scan these.....

oops, wait, I've found one in a book that I'm positive is the right one. I'll scan it as soon as i can get on the computer upstairs.....

 

[Sicy]

I've got 8000 pictures on my hard drive

 

[Liesje]

OK, here they are. The scans aren't too good, the pics were small, black and white, and one was on a crease. This is the MGM Grand 40-seat Boeing 727 used for ZooTV:

 

[Liesje]

 

[Iron Chef MoFo]

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

 

[Liesje]

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.

Sorry if the info is not clear, i know nothing about planes! I'll just describe what I posted. All three pictures are from BP Fallon's book. Trying to decipher good factual information from this book is next to impossible. The last two pictures are from the same page and I quote "MGM Jetliner - We travel from city to city, country to country, in the 40-seat MGM Grand Bowing 727. It's pretty cool, fabulously vulgar even by rock'n'roll standards, kinda like a flying brothel crossed with Graceland abd Hugh Hefner tackiness. Peacocks are etched into the smoked glass windows, art deco lines are carved into another glass panel and the corridor, naturally, is pink......" In the back of his book he's got captions for every picture. For these pictures: "Planes & Wheels: NYC, Miami & everywhere else" is all he offers. The third picture has no caption, it's on a collage page with so many pictures, he didn't caption any of them. Skimming through the other captions, there's a few mentions of the MGM Grand plane flying places in Europe (he's got lots of pictures taken from inside the plane). I can look closer if you want. Sorry if it's confusing, as I said i know nothing about aircraft and BPs knowledge of such is also questionable.

 

[Vox02]

I have seensome photos of U2's tour jets... For 1997 I only see B727 photos ( U2 fly from Europe to USA inside this Boeing! ) adf for 2001 I see some photos of another B727 ( USA shows ) and a beautiful Boeing 737-400.

Vox