I haven’t written about the kerfuffle surrounding President Trump’s soliciting and the Qatari royal family, apparently, offering a new Boeing 747-8 aircraft to be used as Air Force One because it is a kerfuffle. Have we learned a thing that is new from it? Donald Trump has little understanding or even patience with the niceties of protocol or the law and has gauche tastes. We’ve known that for a long time. Indeed, his indifference/impatience with the law is one of my main reasons for consistently opposing his election to office. We haven’t learned a thing about the Republicans, the Democrats, or even the media. The Democrats and major media outlets hate Trump and the Republicans love him or, at least, are afraid to oppose him.
What I miss in all of the coverage is any intellectual curiosity. Air Force One is a Boeing 747-200BC. That’s a more than 40 year old aircraft. Why is the president of the United States flying around in a 40 year old aircraft?
Furthermore, Boeing has been under contract for new 747-8 aircraft to replace the old crates presently being used for Air Force One since 2016. And it’s my understanding that the 747-8 is already obsolete. Fewer than 40 747-8 passenger aircraft were built. Why is it taking Boeing so long?
IMO these are the questions that real reporters should be asking. Why aren’t they asking these questions?
Two reasons of why it is taking so long.
1) Boeing is taking massive loss on the contract. It is a fixed cost contract where Boeing has already spent more money than it will get from the government, and any further spending will return no revenue. From Boeing management view, the incentive is spending as little resources to move the project along and force the government to either cancel or appropriate more money to finish the project.
2) Requirement bloat. Like most DOD procurement projects (see Constellation frigate), the list of requirements keep increasing and changing.
As I recall you supported the inquiries into people giving the Clinton’s money for their Foundation. This doesnt even have the veneer of being donated to charity. From my POV both are important stories and show the impunity now of the political class, be it POTUS or SCOTUS, in accepting “gifts” that if anyone else accepted would be considered bribes.
As to the coverage, it has been pretty extensive going back well before the current bribe. I stopped counting at 25 articles covering the issue taking less than 5 minutes to find them. Link is from one going back to 2014. Business Insider and Bloomberg had articles in 2022. The NYT has at least 2 articles on the topic earlier this year weeks ahead of the Qatar announcement. I wont recount them all but one thing noted in the aviation sources is that while they expect 30 years out of 747 type jet that is with normal commercial usage and AF1 sees much less.
https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/11332/why-does-the-us-president-fly-in-an-obsolete-747-200
Steve
The real story is the incompetence of Boeing, its inability to build airplanes and rockets. Boeing is going bankrupt in all its civilian and military contracts. Its very existence is in question.
While the new Russian and Chinese passenger/cargo planes may not sell to Western airlines, they will completely displace Boeing and Airbus from the Russian and Chinese markets.
India’s recent catastrophic aircraft losses to the Chinese built AWACS/J10C integrated system is a warning to all Western governments. It brutally establishes the high quality of Chinese aircraft and related systems.
steve:
I’m fine with investigating it and even filing articles of impeachment over it. What will that accomplish? Nothing. The Republican House will not impeach Trump.
Moving on from that why is that the ONLY story? The Obama Administration placed the order for the new Air Force One. Clearly, they thought it was necessary. Trump renegotiated the deal. Then Biden ignored it. The new Air Force Ones aren’t expected now until 2030—that’s 14 years after the order was placed. Clearly, there’s something wrong.
What do you mean it’s the only story. Do I need to post the links to the dozens of other stories that have covered the delay in the last 14 years? So now Qatar offers a $400 million bribe and you think they should ignore that and instead rerun the stories they have run earlier?
As to the why it is taking so long they published reasons are that the requirements keep changing and its not seen as overly urgent. Compared with a commercial liner AF1 has many fewer miles and airtime on it.
Steve
I’ve always said when you want to take a bribe do it in the white hot light of day.
Seriously, It’s pretty clear Trump should have set up 20 LLCs to move the plane around before it would up wind up in his grandchildren’s hangar. Now that’s the way it’s done.
They should have just bought a bunch of Trumpcoin like everyone else trying to bribe him.
Steve