Hillary unveiled her campaign Boeing 737 replete with a fresh panting job.
Who owns the plane? Is it a rental? Certainly, the paint scheme becomes useless in another nine weeks.
Any idea how much it costs to paint an airplane? Is the old paint typically removed before adding a new paint scheme? How much does the paint on a 737 add to the gross weight? (which is why I asked if the old paint is removed first).
Chartered.
Vinyl decals.
Vastly more fuel-efficient than Trump’s own 757, which he’s kindly leasing to the campaign for a goodly sum.
Various Googling suggests the difference is ~18% - depends on many things including loading & what engines are on these aircraft.
Not sure that qualifies as “vast”.
Googling around a bit…
On the Democratic side
Hillary Clinton’s campaign rolled out a Boeing 737-86J, tail number N881XA. Registered owner is AERSALE USA 1 LLC, with Xtra Airways as the operator. It is not tracking on FlightAware.
I’ve not been able to find details on a plane for VP nominee Time Kaine.
On the Republican side
Donald Trump is Boeing 757-200, tail number N757AF. Registered owner is DJT OPERATIONS I LLC. Reportedly tracking via Flightaware was removed at request of the owner.
Mike Pence is flying in a Boeing 737-7L9, tail number N278EA. Registered owner is Wells Fargo Bank Northwest NA Trustee. Reportedly this is chartered from Eastern Airlines.
I believe Trump’s is older (maybe ten years old) and the Clinton charter is a 737-800; that puts them pretty much at the diametric extents of any general differences between the equipment.
On short-haul comparison, which is probably the best match for campaign planes, WP says the 757-200 uses 4.67kg/km and the 737-800 uses either 3.17 or 3.50kg/km. Not sure if that accounts for the heavier takeoff weight of the 757 (around 127,000 pounds empty, vs around 75,000 empty for the 737), which would burn more fuel at that stage. So I get around 30% better economy for the HRC express, and probably more. When you’re talking about fuel measured in by the ton, that’s considerable.
I guess T can lease himself any of his own planes he likes, though. 
He’s a VP candidate. He gets the URL for Greyhound and a card for 10% off at participating Waffle Houses.
For comparison, the Space shuttle’s external tank was only painted white for the first couple of flights; leaving the paint off on subsequent flights saved about 600 pounds.
The fuselage of a Boeing 737 is skinnier and shorter, but of course the wings and horizontal/vertical stabilizers add quite a bit of area. I would not be surprised if the total weight of paint on a completely painted aircraft is several hundred pounds.
As to these, a paint job can cost a few tens of thousands of dollars and take a plane out of service for several days. Particularly more so for multiple colors.
But for the design on the Clinton campaign plane it seems that the desired effects could be achieved with vinyl decals in a single day for much less cost.
As you might imagine a full paint job weighs more than a partial one over burnished metal. The common range I’ve seen while googling is that a full paint job adds about 300lbs to the weight of a 737. Bigger planes can be more, as much as 1200lb on a 747.
Now, see, I could have edited the quote there more easily, but not me.
It was only on the *first *flight. If you see a shot of a shuttle launch with a white tank, it was the first launch of Columbia. (Why? Because it looked better, but more importantly, to protect the red anti-corrosion paint over potentially years of delays and weeks of outdoor exposure before the launch.)
The Wikipedia article claims it was the first two flights, backed up by this cite.
The Wikipedia page for STS-2 (the second flight) also specifically mentions the tank paint:
Are these all wrong?
If that’s not a typo, I hope a video of the event surfaces.
I just googled “how much does plane paint weigh,” and it seems we’ve discussed this before.
Apparently not. Huh. That’s one of those things that makes you feel like history has been edited from under you.