It has no jacuzzis, no gold taps, and hardly enough room to swing a cat. In fact, after months of speculation about the excesses it might involve, the downsized Government jet was a downright disappointment when it was formally unveiled at Casement Aerodrome yesterday.
Almost everything about the new plane speaks of modesty, up to and including the fact that ministers will have to bow their heads while standing in it.
Even at that, it will be a tight fit for some.
At €8 million, it cost €1 million per seat, which makes it more expensive than any general election. But its cramped aisles will be unkind to any minister who exceeds the quota, as it were. On the plus side, the plane has insufficient space for a Cabinet split, either.
The LearJet 45 stood side by side yesterday with the official Government jet, the mechanically troubled 10-year-old Gulfstream IV. And from a money-conscious Government's point of view, the two aircraft complemented each other nicely.
The new jet looked tiny compared with the older plane. But the Lear's gleaming leather and wood surfaces make the Gulfstream's interior look like a railway carriage on a bank holiday special between Mallow and Killarney.
The cockpits too provide a stark contrast. The Lear's is all computer graphics, while the Gulfstream's has more knobs and dials than a 1950s Sputnik. So in placing them side by side for media inspection, the Government may have been subtly restating the case - suspended since July - for a long-term replacement for the bigger jet.
In the meantime, it has opted to replace only the secondary State plane, the five-seater Beechcraft turbo-prop used since 1980. But apparently expecting a media onslaught about the extravagance involved in the LearJet, the Minister for Defence was in fighting form when he arrived to inspect it.
This was not a day for "chickening back" or "begrudgery", Mr Smith declared. Ireland was not some "half-baked" country. It had a €40 billion economy, and if politicians were "nervous or afraid to do what needs to be done for Ireland, they shouldn't be there".
A few journalists might complain about the "luxury", he added, but it was the Government's job "to lead".
When it was put to him that, on the contrary, the plane seemed a bit on the small side, and ministers might be embarrassed getting out of it on upmarket foreign airstrips, he was equally unabashed. The LearJet was "used by governments all over the world", he said.
Among the welcoming committee yesterday were three of the flight attendants (there's only room for one at a time on the new plane), their blue uniforms matching everybody's face colour at a bitterly cold Baldonnel.
Also present was Comdt Séamus McCormack, who flew the plane from the US last week.
In keeping with its short-hop capacity, he had to take the long way around the Atlantic, putting down in Newfoundland and Iceland en route. But he praised the new plane's fuel efficiency and all round handling, which was "far more advanced" than the Gulfstream.
Mr Smith also suggested that the jet was a symbol of ever-growing North-South co-operation, with "more than 50 per cent" of it made in Belfast.
Critics would say that a majority of the Good Friday Agreement was made in Belfast too. No doubt the Government will be hoping that at least one of them can stay in the air.
