Business jet on approach

A business jet seen from underneath with its gear down, against pink and grey cloud. The angle is bad for naming an aeroplane and very good for reading its layout.

The camera is underneath the aircraft and a little behind it, in the first of the press pack’s Vice City stills. Below this crop, in the same still, the jet is crossing low over the giant Vice City letters, which have a page of their own. The tail is a T: the horizontal stabiliser sits on top of the fin, so high that the top edge of the photograph cuts through it. Two engines hang on short pylons from the sides of the rear fuselage rather than from the wings, and the wing is set low on the body with an upswept winglet at each tip.

The underside is what this frame gives, and it gives it in detail. Rows of round access panels run across the lower surface of both wings, with panel lines between them and a fairing where each wing meets the body. The gear is down: each main unit under the wing root carries two wheels, and the nose leg hangs forward under the cockpit, so this is an approach and not a cruise shot. A red anti-collision light burns on the belly between the main legs, and the underside of the forward fuselage catches the light as a warm gold, while the nacelles stay grey.

The paint is mostly light, but not all of it. The back half of the fin is dark, near black in this light, and a dark stripe carries on down the rear fuselage towards the engines, with orange streaks of reflected light on it. The front half of the fin is light, and on it, drawn in thin dark lines, are two figures: an oval, and to its left a shape like a 4 with a long stem, or half of a four-pointed star. Both sit whole in the photograph, well below its top edge, but seen from underneath at this angle neither settles into a character.

There is a run of characters along the underside of the left-hand engine nacelle as well. At this size it sits below the floor this site reads lettering at, so not one character of it is given here. Behind the aircraft the sky is salmon and grey.

The name others give it is Buckingham Shamal, GTA 5’s Learjet-pattern business jet, in the game since 2013. The layout here does fit a Learjet 45: T-tail, rear engines, low wing with winglets. What it does not do is choose between two jets, because the database that files it this way carries a Buckingham Luxor on the same donor too, and from underneath the two would look the same. So the name sits below as an attribution with its counter-argument. A second business jet in our material, on a dark apron in the Extended Look, has its own page, and whether it is this aircraft is open.

How to recognise it

• T-tail, the stabiliser on top of the fin at the very top edge of the frame
• Two engines on pylons at the rear fuselage, none on the wings
• Low wing with an upswept winglet at each tip and rows of round access panels underneath
• Gear down: two wheels on each main unit, nose leg forward
• Red anti-collision light lit on the belly
• Back half of the fin dark, front half light with two thin-lined figures; a run of small characters under the left-hand nacelle, too small to read

The frame it comes from

The frame is a still from the official Press pack, which carries no timecode. It is 3840 by 2160, and the vehicle occupies 1075 by 907 of it. Also in it: the VICE CITY letters against a pink-lit sky and Vice City.

How this was measured

These figures come from the dataset, not from the prose above. We measure everything and claim what counts. How we work

What we still do not know

• The figures on the fin and the characters under the nacelle. A closer or sharper view of either would settle what they say; this one does not.
• The livery. From below we see a light airframe, the dark back of the fin and a dark stripe down the rear fuselage; the top and the sides are out of view.
• Which of two jets on the same donor this is, if the attributed name is right at all
• Whether this is the same aircraft as the business jet on the apron in the Extended Look
• Everything measured: top speed, ceiling, price, where it spawns

A note on this record

Checked again on 25 September 2026 against the 4K press still, with a reading record on both crops. Three corrections. The run of characters under the left-hand engine nacelle is far smaller than the note of 22 September allowed, below the size this site reads lettering at, so no character in it is read, not even the first one, which this page gave as a possible N until 25 September. The two figures on the fin sit whole inside the photograph, well below its top edge; that note had them cut off by it. And the Vice City sign and the airport have left the description: the sign is in the same press still but outside both crops, and no airport is in the picture at all. Two smaller ones: the nacelles do not catch the gold light, only the fuselage does, and the livery is not plain, with a dark back to the fin and a dark stripe down the rear fuselage. The T-tail, the rear engines, the gear and the red light all hold.