Posted on 10/18/2015 11:06:47 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
WASHINGTON — President Obama has already made clear what he will miss the most when he leaves office in 15 months. “People sometimes ask me what the biggest perk of being president is,” he told visitors at the White House last week. “No. 1 is the plane.”
In September, he told another audience that “the plane is nice” and that unfortunately for him “my lease is running out,” so he might soon have to “start taking off my shoes again going through security.” In Kenya in July, he noted that when he visited as a young man his luggage was lost: “That doesn’t happen on Air Force One.”
Let’s face it: The plane is, in fact, pretty nice, and the president’s luggage is indeed very rarely lost. But the plane is also getting old. And so after more than a million miles of flying while in office, its current primary passenger is planning to bequeath his successor — or perhaps his successor’s successor — a new-and-improved Air Force One spiffed up for the smartphone age.
The Defense Department hopes to sign an initial contract with Boeing in the coming weeks to begin the long process of assembling a new presidential aircraft capable of ferrying the commander in chief around the world with the capacity to run a war from midair if necessary. Built on the frame of a Boeing 747-8, it will be bigger, more powerful, able to fly farther and vastly more advanced technologically than the current customized Boeing 747-200B jumbo jet.
Mr. Obama himself will not benefit from the trade-in. By some estimates, the new plane may not be available until 2023, when Hillary Rodham Clinton or Donald J. Trump or whoever beats them may be clos
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Visited as a “young boy” is code for “born there.”
Air Force One will get its biggest upgrade in history on January 20, 2017, when we put a real president back in that airplane.
This man has never deserved this plane , he has abused the use of it entirely .
Few keep in mind that with every flight a fleet of C-17’s and backup AF1’s must go along . The costs are incomprehensible , and rarely justifiable , in catering to the every whim of our imperial negroes .
I can’t wait to see President Trump rarely use the same services . Maybe he will , maybe he won’t . But he will deserve it , not like this pretender .
Seems like they just did this for Bush? When the end of the world comes, POTUS will be fine, & flying and ruling over our corpses!
He wore the plane out, at our expense, of course.
What? It doesn’t get ESPN in HD? -PJ
Yup. Gonna be hard to get the smell of stale cigarettes, weed and whatever else that clown and his posse have inflicted on her.
With all the “stimulus money” Obama siphoned off and hid in the Caymans, he can probably buy his own 7X7 outfitted with gold fixtures.
Ahh, but the TDY’s and per diem pay have been a huge bonus to the crews that support his grifting, er, I mean “official” trips...I’d wager you won’t hear too many aircrews, ground crews, security, transportation and logistics folks complaining about all of his trips.
Just think of the CV-22 crew and their trip to Martha’s Vineyard to take the dog on vacation...
” so he might soon have to “start taking off my shoes again going through security.””
My desire is that people wanting to visit him in Max Security Prison would have to take off their shoes and submit to a search prior to seeing him on the other side of the glass
wow ! this is a perspective I never thought of .
I am sure you are right . However , as a taxpayer , I still
oppose them . He’s way overboard with the use .
I hope he ends up flying coach on Delta
which museum will receive it?
It should go to the Air Force Museum.
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