Spud One

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Spud One was an informal name adopted by civil servants for the Boeing 727 aircraft of No. 40 Squadron RNZAF, Royal New Zealand Air Force carrying Prime Minister Jim Bolger.

The RNZAF's three 727s were purchased second hand from Boeing in 1981; All were delivered new to United Airlines in 1968, and sold to the RNZAF second hand by Boeing in 1981. NZ7271 19892 entered service in July 1981, was retired on 7 July 2003 and is now 3D-KMJ. NZ7272 19893 entered service in July 1981, and was retired to Woodbourne as an instructional airframe on 25 August 2003. NZ7273 19895 was the first 727 delivered, on 6 May 1981, but flew only 21 hours, being intended from the start to be a source of spare parts. It was retired 25 June 1981 [1].

The 727s were purchased by the administration of Sir Robert Muldoon and used by the fourth and fifth Labour governments, as well as the administration of Jenny Shipley, but the "spud" nickname was applied to overseas flights by former New Zealand Prime Minister Jim Bolger in the early 1990s. The name is a reference to Air Force One. Bolger was nicknamed Spud due to the similarity of his pockmarked face to a potato, or alternatively for the fact that he was an erstwhile potato farmer.

The 727s were replaced with two Boeing 757s in 2003. [2]. Some civil servants are known to have branded the 757s as "Broomstick One and Broomstick Two", as a reference to them being transport for Prime Minister Helen Clark^{[citation needed]}. The Labour government was criticised by other political parties for updating VIP aircraft while disbanding the RNZAF's combat arm. [3]