Posted on 08/01/2017 1:25:00 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Donald Trump loves a good deal. And the United States Air Force just found one for the president, sitting in a Mojave Desert boneyard: two brand new Boeing 747-8's, the very same planes that the military plans to convert into the next Air Force One aircraft. These two have an interesting origin story, too.
The two 747-8s were originally ordered by Transaero, a Russian airline that went bankrupt and couldnt pay for them. Aeroflot, the company that acquired Transaero and Russias largest airline, absorbed much of the bankrupt companys fleet but never took ownership of the 747-8s, which carry a sticker price of $386.8 million. So Boeing took them back, flight-tested them, and put them in storage in the Mojave Desert. Now, they could be the presidents next personal jet.
Its not yet a done deal. According to Defense One, the Air Force is expected to announce the purchase of these two 747-B aircraft as soon as this week. In a statement, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said, Were working through the final stages of coordination to purchase two commercial 747-8 aircraft and expect to award a contract soon.
Meanwhile, Boeing spokeswoman Caroline Hutcheson said, Were still working toward a deal to provide two 747-8's to the Air Forcethis deal is focused on providing a great value for the Air Force and the best price for the taxpayer.
Key to the value proposition here is that the Air Force would still have to outfit the new 747-8's with all of the unusual and expensive riggings that Air Force One requires. These include private conference rooms in the cabin, private quarters for the president, an operating room for medical emergencies, a mid-air refueling probe, flares hidden in the wings to deter missile attacks, and a fuselage that can survive a nuclear blast on the ground. Based on a Pentagon budget request, the Air Force has the budget to spend nearly $3.2 billion on these modifications. Its so far unclear how much the Air Force would pay Boeing for the two planes recovered from Transaero, and its possible we might never know the price of the deal.
But still, Donald Trump must be pleased. The man behind The Art of the Deal barked loudly after his election last November that the new Air Force One was just too expensive. Never mind the fact that Trump might never get to fly in one of the two new Air Force One aircraft, which are expected to enter service some time between 2018 and 2022. If the deal does go through, however, we can expect the president to take credit. The irony of the fact that the comes from a backdoor Russian source while the Trumps administration is under investigation for colluding with Russia will be lost on no one.
Why, not at all! That should be halfway through his second term at the latest.
They’re sure Hillary will win this next time....
Trump Flies on Russian Airplane!
- CNN
Oh, he will definitely be there to fly in them, heh heh.
I’m still not tired of all this winning Mr President !
Keep it up Sir !
He shops for a jet the same way I look for a car - in the boneyard.
It’s amusing watching this jibber-jabber about saving money on a couple of Presidential military jets when we spend this much money on supplying illegal aliens with toilet paper.
Beat me to it!
More negative-nanci-ism. If the crew finds out it’s for the POTUS, Commander-in-chief Donald Trump it will be done ahead of schedule, under budget and the men will perform the best jobs that they can on it.
It will be a masterpiece. People want to help this President out, and I think they’ll have no problem finding people willing to do the job better and faster.
heh heh heh..... it’s always Russia!
Maybe the new ones won’t be bugged by the self-appointed deep state shadow government.
Oh jeez, did this guy have to throw that nonsense in there? Give me a break.
This is TOTALLY TRUMP. They need new planes because the impact to upgrading the existing planes would be extremely costly (taking them out of service for extended times).
So take two green-tails (as we call them ‘in the business’) and work on getting them up to AF-1 standards, without interrupting the existing AF-1’s. No need for new airframes (regardless of whether they would look cool, just low mileage is good enough!
The cost here is next to nothing...compared with new airframes, at least.
The fact they’re “used” airframes with minimal hours makes the deal even better. Unfortunately, the military has gotten burned on these deals in the past, often because they insisted on Boeing 707 airframes for maintenance and logistics commonality.
I had a friend who was among the initial cadre of JSTARS. Those airframes were aged when they were acquired almost 30 years ago, and the Air Force went way over budget getting them into tip-top shape. I heard some of the flights from their “source” to Lake Charles, LA (where the aircraft were re-habbed) were quite an adventure, due to their poor condition.
“Dealth List”? I know, I know, not your spelling mistake. Just wondering if anyone else noticed it...
I do wonder if it’s cheaper to buy them like this to retrofit or have them built originally to spec. I’m sure some bean counter somewhere knows for sure.
I just did some it work for a company that does the fitting out of jet airliners as private jets
The cost of the new work and rework inside is sometimes more expensive than the jet itself
Think of it as an RV or a yacht
a jet airliner is just basically a big empty bus just like an RV that’s not fitted with anything
but once you fit it out that’s where all the expense
but to buy these two aircrafts you’re going to save on the basic airframe tremendously
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.