Trump’s flying fortress

BEING a buddy of Donald Trump can clearly have its rewards. Piers Morgan, for example, was allowed to climb on board the presidential jet,Air Force One, and conduct an exclusive interview with the man himself last summer at Stansted Airport.

Piers recalls that experience vividly during INSIDE AIR FORCE ONE: SECRETS OF THE PRESIDENTIAL PLANE (Channel 5, 9.15pm).

Vividly and, would you believe, in a slightly self-aggrandising manner.

“I remember walking up those steps and thinking, ‘Wow, you’re part of history now,’” he remarks. Yes, that’s right, Piers thought walking onto the US President’s jet was making him part of history. Bless.

But, OK, I do appreciate the point he’s making. Or trying to make. Customised by the military, and apparently able to shield itself from the electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear explosion, not that I’d imagine there’d be a lot of point, Air Force One is a plane like no other.Well, apart from the identical one used for back-up and decoy purposes.

The programme is revealing in parts but a bit of a let-down in others. For one thing, it doesn’t really take us “inside” the plane for much of the time, despite what its title suggests. Sure, it offers glimpses – from old photos, archive clips etc.

But mostly it’s anecdotal, the recollections of people who’ve travelled on this thing, worked on it, or in the case of Commander Mark Tillman, actually flew it for 18 years.

Commander Tillman, we’re told, “knows all its classified secrets, from the missile defence system hidden in its wings to the way every single item on board is tested for sabotage”.Which I guess means those aren’t classified secrets anymore.

Meanwhile, a former White House Chief of Staff,Andrew Card, reveals how well equipped the President’s plane is, even down to “a medical facility where they could actually operate on him if he needed to be operated on.”

Trump, mind you, hasn’t always sounded hugely impressed by Air Force One’s facilities.And, to be fair, it does lack a few basics. Unlike his personal private jet, Trump One, it doesn’t even have 24-carat gold seatbelts.

Elsewhere tonight JOAN ARMATRADING: ME, MYSELF, I (BBC4, 9pm) celebrates the career of a singer-songwriter who, despite a career dating back almost half a century, remains remarkably self-effacing.

Aged 68, Joan still performs to packed crowds – and still suffers pre-show nerves.

“There’s no guarantee they’ll like what I do, just because they’ve turned up,” she insists. “They might think, ‘Oh, she’s lost it…’”