Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul flew himself to an air base in Nakhon Ratchasima on Friday. Three F-16 fighter jets went up to meet him.
The Royal Thai Air Force ran the arrival as an escort exercise. Two F-16s took station off each wing of his aircraft. A third flew above it.
The formation held all the way down to Wing 1. The air force said the profile matched what it would fly to protect a VIP aircraft for real.
Anutin was at the controls of a Daher-Socata TBM 930 registered HS-SST. Much of the Thai coverage called it a private jet. It is not one.
The TBM 930 is a single-engine turboprop with room for six. It cruises at about 330 knots, which puts it close to light jet speed.
He bought it in December 2016. It was the first TBM 930 delivered anywhere in Asia, and he flew it home himself from the Daher factory at Tarbes in southern France.
Squadron 103 gave him an F-16 patch made for the day. The design puts Mickey Mouse in a flight suit under the words F-16 Fighting Mickey.
Mickey is the callsign Anutin uses when he flies, and Squadron 103 built the whole design around it.
Air Chief Marshal Seksan Khantha met him on the flightline. The defence minister and the chief of defence forces were on the trip as well.
Anutin then set out five policy priorities. The first is air power, covering replacement fighters, air-to-air refuelling aircraft and armed drones.
The other four are satellite and space surveillance, disaster response, tactical data links tied into national command, and a home-grown defence industry built around drones.
“The government is ready and willing to give full support,” he said.
Four F-16s then flew simulated air-to-ground and air-to-air attacks. An H225M helicopter demonstrated combat search and rescue.
He inspected F-5, F-16, Gripen and AT-6 aircraft on the ground. He was also briefed on air operations along the Thai-Cambodian border.
Anutin had been expected to go up in an F-16 himself. Thai media reported on 10 August that the plan had been dropped because he was not ready for it.
No official explanation followed, and the rest of the programme went ahead as planned.
How Anutin learned to fly? He took up flying at 45, during the five years he spent banned from politics. A friend arrived by private aircraft on a trip to Khao Yai, and he decided he wanted to do the same.
His 2023 declaration to the anti-corruption commission listed three aircraft. He valued the Embraer Legacy 600 at about 534 million baht. The TBM 930 came to about 139 million and a Cirrus SR22T to about 22 million.
He also flies for the Thai Red Cross. Under a project he calls Heart with Wings, he has carried donor hearts to transplant teams racing a six-hour window.
He does not always fly those missions himself. In April this year he lent the TBM 930 to a Red Cross team instead. They flew a heart down from Lampang while he sat in a Cabinet meeting.
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Sources: Thai PBS, Thairath, The Standard, Khaosod
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