Inside Air Force One as a new era in the presidential plane

Most journalists who travel with the American president do not see much of the interior of Air Force One, the presidential jet.

The press cabin is located at the back of the plane, accessible via a rear series of steps and a fast turn of a corner.

To reach the presidential suite at the front of the plane, negotiating with the armed secret service providers in the Buts of the fine should negotiate.

During the journey from Donald Trump to the Middle East this week, when the future of the famous aircraft was a huge point of conversation, FOX News-Gastheer Sean Hannity had priority seats and access to the president to hold an interview during the flight.

But the rest of us in the traveling press bath was sent to our small part of the plane.

It was a whirlwind trip and hit three nations in three nights, half a world away. The president described it as a “endurance test” – one who also had to manage his staff and those of us in the perspool.

However, the presidential jet is not a bad way to fly. The 14 seats are comfortable, roughly on the same footing with a first -class domestic flight.

There is a bathroom and a table with snacks (including the coveted Air Force One brand M&MS with the signature of the president, which is not available anywhere else).

The cabin has a few television monitors – usually tailored to the president’s preference cable news channel (CNN during the period of Joe Biden; Fox News for Trump). Occasionally they are set to a football match or other sporting events.

For longer flights, the meals on board serves meals (the president eats from another, loviger menu). On short hops there is usually food in a pick -up bag.

But the interior of this famous aircraft could soon undergo a radical refit if, as it seems, Trump accepts the Qatari offer to deliver a new “palace in the air” – the largest foreign gift ever received by an American president.

From a technical point of view, “Air Force One” is a radio sign, the indication for Air Force aircraft with the US President on board. In the sixties, the small propplaat Lyndon Baines Johnson also took Austin to his ranch in Texas to Air Force One.

But the Air Force One Most People Picture, the one who can be seen in the Harrison Ford -Active film, is the 747-200B with water blue and white paint against a chrome lower body -a color scheme that was selected by First Lady Jackie Kennedy in 1962.

There are currently two of these 747s in the Air Force Passenger Fleet, in use since 1990. Needless to say, technology – both in aircraft design and everything else – has taken a long way in the following years. The planes have been upgraded, but the costs for maintaining the hull and the engines are growing. The planes show their age.

This has clearly irritated the current occupant of the White House – the only president who owns his own jet, or by the way, his own airline before he took office.

“I am leaving now and go on a 42-year-old Boeing,” he said, exaggerating the age of the plane during a branch briefing on Thursday in Abu Dhabi. “But new ones are coming.”

Comes, but not fast enough for Trump. During his first term, he praised an updated presidential plane made by Boeing, which was in the making. He even chose his own color palette and scraped Kennedy’s design for a red-white-blue livrei. He proudly shows a model of that jet in the Oval Office.

Originally planned to be delivered by 2021, delays and cost overruns for the estimated $ 4 billion building program made it less likely that the two new aircraft will be available in order for many or not of Trump’s second office, which ends in January 2029.

He has commissioned Tech multi-billionaire Elon Musk to speed up the process and reportedly Privé in Grouwen that he is ashamed of traveling in such an outdated plane.

That explains why the president has fallen in love with the prospect of an apparently more direct solution for his air transport problems – thanks to the Persian golf nation of Qatar.

News about Qatar’s offer from a lush $ 400 million 747-8 made the headlines last week, but apparently the gift has been in the making for months.

Trump secretly visited the plane in question in mid -February, just a few weeks after the start of his second term.

Apart from the legal and ethical concerns of such a substantial gift – raised by critics and some allies of the president – creates a number of technical challenges for use by a US president for use.

The aircraft should be made to refuel refueling during the flight and afterwards with a refined package of communication and security equipment. The current models have built systems to withstand the electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear explosion.

Such a reference process, says aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia, director of aerodynamic advice, would take at least years, until 2030.

“They must assume that the Jet has been left in a dangerous place for 13 years,” he says. “Which means that it is not enough to take the plane apart. You also have to take each component apart.”

The aircraft would need extra power to run its new systems, and the interior may have to be rearranged. Chances are that there is no press cabin in the flying palace as originally designed.

Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Defense and Security Department of Defense and the International Studies, says that the costs of such adjustment can easily run to $ 1 billion.

However, he adds that Trump could abandon the security adjustments if he chooses.

“He is the president,” he said.

When the Air Force ultimately retires its current harvest of 747s, it will be a plane that has been part of the structure of American history for decades. One that President Bill Clinton transported, together with former presidents Jimmy Carter and George W Bush, to Israel for the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.

After the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, George W Bush rose the air in Air Force One and stayed up for hours, refueling in the air, until his security team determined that it was safe for him to land and tackle the nation before he finally returned to Washington.

Six American presidents have traveled on these jets, cross the US and visit all corners of the world. One brought Biden only a few days after the attack of 7 October through Hamas to Israel.

Trump has effectively used the aircraft as a campaign device, keeping political rallies at airports and making low speed passes over the crowd before he lands and Air Force One uses as a dramatic background for his speeches.

During Trump’s recent Mid -Oost -Travel, military hunters from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the VAE Air Force One while it flew through their national airspace.

Although it also gets older, Air Force One is still one of the most recognizable signs of the US presidential authority and power in the world – a military aircraft that serves a higher goal.

“It is not made for luxury,” says Aboulafia. “It’s a flying command post. You are not there to throw parties.”

Additional reporting by Max Matza