President Trump has said that the United States needs a more “impressive” air force, on the same footing with the tight jets he has seen in oil-rich countries in the Middle East.
The two 747-200s who now act as Air Force One dependent from when the president is on board more than 30 years old and were intended to be based from the service years ago.
The efforts in the last 10 years to replace them have met repeated delays and the planes are not expected to be finished before Mr. Trump leaves the office, although perhaps 2027 at the earliest.
So he said that he is planning to accept a Boeing 747-8 that is known as a “palace in heaven” as a donation of the royal family of Qatari to the Pentagon, and then be transferred to his presidential library. The plan – of which Qatari officials have said is only in discussion but not completed – has drawn a huge recoil, including from Republicans, because Mr Trump has certainly insisted that there is no problem with it.
The aircraft that now serves as Air Force One are safe, but they are time floats and aircraft are intended to fly only a certain amount of time before they have to retire.
“They are just old aircraft – and planes have finite lives,” said Frank Kendall, who served as secretary of the Air Force until the beginning of this year, and who first started working on contracts to replace the two aircraft during the Obama administration. “There is no doubt that these aircraft must be replaced.”
There are fewer than two dozen 747-200s that fly more worldwide, and reserve parts for replacements require work to obtain and often have to be tailor-made.
Presidential jets usually take a few decades. In 1990 the US Army began to use the 747 Jets that still fly today, with three floors with a meeting room, as well as specialized communication equipment.
The journey to develop new jets to serve as Air Force One – the call for which plane the president also travels on board – has been long.
It started when President George W. Bush initiated plans for two new presidential aircraft halfway through his second term. Mr Bush had experienced the importance of a functioning presidential aircraft when he and some advisers spent the eight hours after the 11 September 2001, terrorist attacks that traveled on board Air Force around the east coast, the safest place he could be at the time, because he directed the reaction.
During the term of office of President Barack Obama, the plans for new aircraft only took place in his penultimate year. In 2015, the Boeing army chose to deliver 747-8 frames for the new aircraft.
They had to be rebuilt with specifications so that they can resist radiation that is possible in the air after a nuclear explosion and certain types of rocket attacks, as well as the ability to refuel in the air.
The 747 itself cost around $ 250 million, Mr Kendall said, but the final Air Force One plane is supplied with a price tag of at least $ 2 billion – of which Mr Kendall said that illustrates how extensive and time -consuming the jet’s overhaul is ready to wear the president.
The work includes building a flying version of the situations space on the plane, a communication system with which the president can come into contact with any military or political leader in the world, a mini medical clinic and defensive measures in case there is an enemy rocket that tries to remove it.
“It’s not just a plane anymore,” Mr. Kendall said. “It’s a flying white house.”
In 2018, with progress on the aircraft that are slowly moving, the government of Mr Trump Boeing granted a contract-to-have a contract that existed under Mr Obama-Voors two new 747-8 aircraft. Instead of completely rebuilding them, they would use the frames of Jets that were built for a Russian airline that went bankrupt.
They had to be equipped with military paving and defense systems, in the hope that Mr. Trump might fly on them at the end of his first term.
But the Coronavirus -Pandemie helped cause a new round of delays. The company that was contracted to produce the specialized interior – not only the buckles and seats of belts, but communication and storage systems – went bankrupt. Boeing also saw shortages of the delivery line for some parts.
Yet Boeing also suffered a series of problems that are not related to the pandemic. Among them, the Federal Aviation Administration Treuren in Frames of Boeing 747-8 aircraft identified that required extensive solutions.
All that has meant that the planes that had to be delivered by 2024 are still behind schedule and may not be ready by the time Mr. Trump leaves the office.
That is what Mr. Trump furious, who once had a shuttle service from the airline and knows a lot about aircraft that have had private aircraft over time. Mr. Trump has a used 757 plane that is known as Trump Force One that is decorated with gold and mahogany tables.
The color scheme is blue, red and white – the same colors that he wants for the new Air Force One, to replace the famous Robbin’s Egg Blue of the current design. Mr. Trump has traveled around with a model of the new Air Force One since he left his office, with pride in the main room in Mar-A-Lago, his private club in Florida, in the years between his two periods.
But the age of the current Air Force One Aircraft seems Mr. Trump less to disturb than the visuals. He believes that they do not possess the level of impressive symbolism of America that he thinks they should, and that the leaders of the oil -rich countries he is currently visiting, have nicer planes than the one he travels on.
“The plane where you are now is almost 40 years old,” Mr. Trump told the Fox News -Guestheer Sean Hannity during an interview on board Air Force One when Mr. Trump traveled to the middle -east this week.
“And when you land and see you Saudi Arabia, and you see the of the of, and you see Qatar and you see this all and they usually have this brand new Boeing 747s, and you see ours next to it, this is a totally different plane. It is much smaller. It is much less impressive, as impressive as you are Trump.
“And we are the United States of America. I believe we should have the most impressive plane,” he said.
But taking possession of a gifted Qatarese jet is only the first step of a very complex and long -term process that would be needed to prepare it to become a real air force, Mr Kendall said.
“What they get is a luxury plane designed to fly around an Emir or a member of the royal family in a lushly flying palace,” he said. “But that is nothing like the possibilities and unique characteristics of an Air Force One. The Air Force can paint it with the colors that President Trump wants, but it will not be Air Force.”
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