Boeing to take more than a decade to refit two 747s for Air Force One
Utter incompetence: According to recent news reports, Boeing will not be able to deliver the two 747s it is refitting to be the president’s Air Force One fleet until 2029, even though it signed a $3.9 billion contract to do so in 2018.
The delay is startling given that Boeing isn’t building the planes from scratch. During Trump’s first term, Boeing started to overhaul two 747s that were built for a Russian airline that never took the jets.
This is more than absurd, it is obscene. Boeing is handed two flightworthy 747s and almost $4 billion, and it can’t refit the two planes in less than a decade? It seems one of the first things Trump should do once he returns to office next month is cancel this contract entirely, demand a refund from Boeing, and simply convert his present fleet of “Trump Force One” airplanes that he has been using since 2020 for use as president. Cheaper, faster, and certainly a wiser use of taxpayer money.
As for Boeing, this story illustrates once again how far this company has fallen. Remember, it was Boeing that conceived, designed, and built the 747. Moreover, its 747 has been used for decades for Air Force One. For its engineers now to be incapable to refitting another two 747s for this purpose seems inconceivable, and suggests those same engineers should not be trusted on any new planes they build.
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Utter incompetence: According to recent news reports, Boeing will not be able to deliver the two 747s it is refitting to be the president’s Air Force One fleet until 2029, even though it signed a $3.9 billion contract to do so in 2018.
The delay is startling given that Boeing isn’t building the planes from scratch. During Trump’s first term, Boeing started to overhaul two 747s that were built for a Russian airline that never took the jets.
This is more than absurd, it is obscene. Boeing is handed two flightworthy 747s and almost $4 billion, and it can’t refit the two planes in less than a decade? It seems one of the first things Trump should do once he returns to office next month is cancel this contract entirely, demand a refund from Boeing, and simply convert his present fleet of “Trump Force One” airplanes that he has been using since 2020 for use as president. Cheaper, faster, and certainly a wiser use of taxpayer money.
As for Boeing, this story illustrates once again how far this company has fallen. Remember, it was Boeing that conceived, designed, and built the 747. Moreover, its 747 has been used for decades for Air Force One. For its engineers now to be incapable to refitting another two 747s for this purpose seems inconceivable, and suggests those same engineers should not be trusted on any new planes they build.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I think these later ones were supposed to have more composites—so I don’t like that either.
The suits killed 747 anyway…sigh.
The 747-8’s they are converting have little in common with the old 747’s used now. Also, to be used as air force one, the plane needs all kinds of stuff like midair refueling capability. This is in addition to the specialized cabin and communications equipment. The planes need some electromagnetic pulse protection. Air force one is a military command post in a sense.. It is a momumental job, and may be even harder in a civilian plane with modern avionics. There are no economies of scale…the cost cannot be spread over many planes. It is not worth it to do this to an airplane that already has a lot of wear on it…such as Trump’s plane.
However, Boeing has been good at this sort of thing in the past. It is hard, but it is doable. There are many civilian airliner derived military planes out there. The Air Force has huge fleets of them. Boeing was reputed to do a good job on the P-8 (based on the 737) but really screwed up the KC-46(based on the 767). Of course, Boeing has screwed up a lot in the past couple decades. The usual reason I have heard is that when Boeing bought out Mcdonald Douglas, the old Mcdonald Douglas management essentially took over Boeing and slowly drove it to the ground.
Cloudy wrote, “the plane needs all kinds of stuff like midair refueling capability. This is in addition to the specialized cabin and communications equipment. The planes need some electromagnetic pulse protection.”
I disagree, especially with refueling. This is merely gold-plating to justify a big government project. The president does not need that much extra, not in my opinion. The biggest and most important thing they can do is simply never have the VP on the plane with him.
And if you disagree, look at the picture here, of Abraham Lincoln giving his second inaugural address, in the middle of the Civil War., only miles from the Virginia border of the Confederacy.
Americans once treated their presidents as normal people. And Americans and their presidents were once not so afraid to do so.
Its not that hard.
Many other countries do the very same thing. Many. Boeing has done it a dozen times.
As for a flying command post. It just needs several forms of communication. That is all. Presidents do not directly command any troops. They do it all through each branches commanders. Its not some video game.
This is just sandbagging the job.
Robert.
Washington used to answer the door to his own home when he was receiving dignitaries.
Lincoln actually admitted a gun manufacturer into his office with loaded weapons and then went out on the lawn to test them before accepting an order/contract for the army. Even he didn’t have armed guards inside the building. People just wanked in and talked to him right off the streets.
JFK handled the Cuban Missile Crisis with nothing but a couple phones.
Robert—are you really stooping down to use a photo from the Civil War as if it is in any way applicable to this issue? Really?
For some reason—people mistake powdered wigs for halos—and such wigs were dated by Lincoln’s day—and telegraphy was his cutting edge secret weapon at the time.
If we must look to the past—then it is Looking Glass that should be our guide:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Looking_Glass
In-flight refueling is vital in an emergency…though Triton might have been even better
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Triton_(SSRN-586)
Air Force One and Putin’s ride compared:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=faVAJm7G2Gc
I don’t mean to be ugly—but it sounds silly to think refueling massive amounts of cryogenics into Starship is a cinch—but in-flight re-fueling of kerosene into planes is “gold plating”
I would have to agree with Jeff. Get a couple of E2’s and change the accommodations to make them more comfortable. There is no reason to spend that much time and money on two 747’s.
Also have the benefit of scaring the living daylights out of everyone when they here that the President is arriving on a Doomsday plane.
My only thought regarding this is how much are the ‘authorities’ changing the spec or demanding higher spec that originally quoted for?
I wonder how much this conversion is to the level of business class fittings vs the gov demanding of luxury Presidential?
(I think the gov did the same with the EH101 Helicopter contract, demanding after signature 6′ headroom needing changes to the floor structure, galley kitchen instead of a snack & coffee station, etc.)
Maybe Elon should buy Boeing and turn it around. Andreesen talks about how Elon creates this zone of competence to get the best out of people. He focuses on the biggest problems, and then solves them.
https://x.com/i/status/1868639726275875031
Seems to me that the “Deep State” is part of Boeing.
Boeing having been ruled by DEI for so long, I would not put it past them to delay the project to keep Trump from using the new planes in hope that the Democrats can “win” the 2028 Election. TDS is a foul mental illness.
However, I would not put it past incompetence and milking a cost plus contract as root causes to the delays.
So should the President just book a United flight out of IAD and fly first class wherever he goes? (Yes, I demand the same level of efficiency from government as I do, say, Apple. I get that. But not to that point?)
Trump has told the story many times about how he originally negotiated the contract down.
I’m hoping this will be on his radar from day one.
Mark me down as cautiously optimistic.
pause… looks like history is repeating itself!
Trumps Talks Boeing Airforce 1 deal (and the guy from Softbank invests $….)
December 2016
https://youtu.be/o6x7ECj6KwI
2:30
The E6 Mercury, used to communicate with missile subs and silos after a first strike is being replaced with a C-130 derivative. How survivable do you think that will be?
The C-130 can land on a carrier at least
“Look Ma! No Hook!”
I remember reading that the new AF1 had the in-flight refueling capability removed by Trump years ago as a cost savings measure….. And still overtime and over budget …
Both Lincoln and Kennedy have shown us how much the world has changed. Not only is it now unsafe for the U.S. president to answer his own door, it is unsafe for him to drive down the street.
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Two telephones may have been enough to divert nuclear disaster in 1962, but better communications between the U.S. and Russia may have let Kennedy know that Russia’s troops in Cuba were authorized to launch nukes if the U.S. invaded Cuba, which was an option that Kennedy considered. Imagine the change in the world if that happened, and all because two telephones really were not enough.
_______________
One of the financial/political/PR dangers of being a government contractor is the government constantly revising requirements. With the world changing so fast, these days, it is possible that Boeing is trying to keep up with some requirements changes, costing it time and maybe money. Ironically, if this is the case, this forces the government to continue to use an obsolete Air Force One even as they demand an advanced one.
Well documented that Eleanor Roosevelt carried concealed. Many women traveling alone did so back then. My mother had a small but deadly in her purse which she had with her when she took dictation in the Eisenhower White House. But when she went back to work during LBJ the policy changed at some point. I met a TWA Stewardess on a cross country night flight who had a small auto pistol in a shoulder harness and a two shot small gun in her boot as a backup. Part of the job but also good to have when living in Oakland.
Then, too, with folks hopped up on bath salts, you at least need a .45 else it just makes them angrier.
It’s amazing when you learn just how casual and accessible presidents were in the 19th century. When it was time for him to leave the presidency, John Adams, for example, simply hopped on board the 4am public coach on the morning of March 4, 1801, when Thomas Jefferson was to be inaugurated later that day. He got on the coach alone, with a steamer trunk, I believe, and that was that. Just took public coaches all the way back home to Quincy, Massachusetts. No security detail whatsoever.
It was a far smaller, far simpler country back then. Adams and Lincoln did not have civilization-destroying arsenals at their fingertips, and (as Donald Trump knows all too well), did not face anything like the threat matrix that presidents today do. But it is depressing to see how many walls we have built up around the presidency, to say nothing of how imperial its powers have become.
P.S. Frederick Douglass had a great story about how he spontaneously decided to go visit Lincoln back at the White House a few hours after the second inaugural address, and how even he, a black freeman with no office or status, after a minor ruckus with policemen at the door, managed to get in to have a short conversation with Abraham Lincoln. https://housedivided.dickinson.edu/sites/teagle/texts/douglass-on-lincolns-second-inaugural-1881/
The government is changing nothing with any request. At least without the suggestions from the manufacturers first.
Its one of the jobs of lobbyists. Convince the government to buy the products they want to sell. And to get more money out of a contract get a few politicians to change the requirements and expand the contract.
You can’t actually think politicians are smart enough to think pf these things alone. And even if a politician does think of a way to extend a contract they would NEVER ask for something if they didn’t already know the company could do it, and get the election donations up front.