re: Trump wants to cancel order for new Air Force One. Why?

quote:

---

Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!

---

quote:

---

I have no clue what these things cost.

---

quote:

---

It's actually $4 billion for TWO planes, not one. Still.... $2 Billion for a plane? I know it's got the latest and greatest protections and electronics, but holy cow!

---

quote:

---

The White House has urgently asked for new presidential jumbo jets to replace two Air Force One Boeing 747-200 aircraft that will reach their 30-year life expectancy next year and are becoming harder to keep flying, according to the Air Force.

"The real challenge and the challenge that is forcing us to buy newer aircraft for the president is to overcome the fact that there are heroics going on every day to keep the current aircraft flying and it's becoming way too expensive and way too difficult to do that," said Kevin W. Buckley, program executive officer of mobility programs headquartered at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson.

Buckley has oversight of replacing the presidential fleet, known in the Air Force as VC-25s, with two and possibly three Boeing 747-8 planes, a larger and more fuel-efficient version of the iconic blue and white jumbo jetliner with a giant American flag painted on its tail. The Air Force says the new four-engine aircraft will take flight with the president aboard in 2024. Wright-Patterson manages the presidential aircraft replacement program.

"Even with the current replacement program, the existing aircraft will get to be around 35 years old, which is up there in jetliner years," Richard Aboulafia, a senior aviation analysis at the Teal Group in Virginia, said in an email.

While the Air Force has kept bombers and aerial tankers flying decades-longer than ever expected -- many more than half a century old -- that's not an option with the presidential fleet, Buckley said.

"We grit our teeth and bear it in the U.S. Air Force," he said. "We can't do that with the presidential air (fleet). They need 100 percent reliability."

Neither the Air Force nor Boeing released cost estimates when requested Monday, but it was reported early this year that the Air Force has budgeted $1.65 billion between 2015 and 2019 for the new Air Force One. The cost of a commercial Boeing 747-8 is nearly $370 million, according to media reports.

---

quote:

---

Trump to Put Boeing Employees Out of Work

---

quote:

---

Just post anything--They'll eat it up! Doesn't have to be true.

---

quote:

---

The Air Force One aircraft that President Obama currently uses are set to retire in a few years' time. Its two almost identical Boeing 747-200 jumbo jets are to be replaced by Boeing 747-8 jumbo jets, costing more than $3bn (£1.94bn). The new aircraft is expected to take off only after 2023

---

quote:

---

much more fuel efficient

---

quote:

---

It's cheaper to get new planes than continue beating down the 200.

---

quote:

---

--just doesn't feel genuine when tweeted about tho.

---

quote:

---

The two planes are approaching the end of their 30-year life cycle and are due to be replaced in 2024.

---

quote:

---

Of the 744 B-52s Boeing built between 1952 and 1962, 76 remain in active service. They share bombing duties with the supersonic B-1 and the stealthy B-2, both far younger models, but aren’t going anywhere. The US Air Force Global Strike Command, which maintains the bombers at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and Minot AFB in North Dakota (with a few at Edwards Air Force Base in California) expects them to keep flying through the 2040s. That’s not a hard ceiling, though, and continued combat success and budgetary factors could keep the B-52 in action until it turns 100 years old.

---

quote:

---

When Boeing makes a shite ton of money and as much as it can, we all do well and that means more jobs and more jobs.

---