Look Gary! There I Am!
JANN gets a slight cameo in a article discussing The Gatekeepers
Welcome aboard to our new subscribers, JANN is now up to 53 subscribers at the time of writing. For our new members or those who are a bit behind on their reading this is going to be a bit of an odd post. Before we go any further let’s establish some basics:
The USAF operates as handful of VIP transport aircraft based on the Boeing 757 passenger jet
The designation they have given these aircraft is C-32
There is an A variant and a B variant of the C-32s.
Here at JANN we are mainly interested in the B variant (among other things which may be discussed in the near future) because they go through great efforts to try and not be interesting. But mainly because the 757 is such a good looking plane and the C-32B livery accentuates that.
Now that you understand the basics you’ll have a greater appreciation for what is included below.
What we have here is JANN’s “Krusty Krab commercial” moment. In episode of SpongeBob, he gets a small cameo in a commercial for the Krusty Krab. He hypes up this feature to his pet snail, Gary, making it seem as if he has some large role in the commercial. In reality all you can see is the top of his head and his hat.
Much like Monsieur SquarePants’ feature my feature in this article is quite minor. It’s more of an administrative feature as my role in regards to the GKs has become somewhat of a curator role. Much like I remarked in Sometimes, It’s Good To Be Seen - Part 1, the way in which you are perceived, such as being considered “Mr. Gatekeeper” (or Monsignor GK for those who follow my twitter) can have a ripple effect that expands beyond your physical reach.
As noted in previous 757-SAV articles, recently the Air Force’s Air Materiel Command has decided to remove the registrations from the GKs. The registration is how observers like you and I can tell what plane is what and who it belongs to. This is essentially a plane’s license plate.
Now I have not included a picture of a GK yet because I wanted to build the suspense also it’s an excuse to uses this great picture by Keystone Intel. As far as we know this was the first confirmed sighting of a Gatekeeper without its registration by someone who is not directly involved in the Gatekeepers and their operations:
As you can see there are almost no markings on the plane apart from a small United States flag towards the rear of the plane, the Gatekeepers have always been sparsely marked as they are intended to be covert or clandestine.
However, the A variant of the C-32 is not intended to be covert or clandestine as it is primarily tasked with carrying Vice Presidents instead of a Task Force. Despite this, one was recently spotted in Japan without its registration visible. Which is what The War Zone to write their article.
Anyway I kind of forgot I was supposed to be talking about myself here, but LOOK! The pictures that were the focus of Sometimes, It’s Good To Be Seen - Part 1 (and the yet to be released Part 2) are now an integral part of the Air Force C-32 Jets Are Going Incognito Under New Security Policy article in The War Zone, a publication that refers to themselves as “A strong offense for the world of defense.”
When I first started this publication 2 years ago I was reading Secretive Tonopah Test Range Airport Had A Mysteriously Busy Week In September thinking how cool it would be to be featured in an article one day. Yesterday was that day.
I cannot thank you enough, without your support this publication wouldn’t exist.
“Hold on, wait” thinks the reader. “I just read through The War Zone article and the C-32B landing in Japan isn’t 00-9001 or 02-4452, the antenna placement is all wrong.” This is correct valued reader, that is the first sighting of C-32B 99-6143 without its registration. That’s 3 out of 5 Gatekeepers that have now been confirmed to no longer have a visible registration. That leaves 02-5001 and the seldom seen 98-6006.