I have plenty of experience with union ground crew and shift changes. I’m union too, so I get it; I truly do.
Believe me when I say that any IAM cargo tug driver I’ve ever met would have looked at his watch and never left the warehouse if he thought he’d not be back before the bell rang. Lunch might last half an hour, but there’s at least a 15 minute penumbra ahead of totality where increasingly little gets started.
Did I ever tell y’all about the time we nearly had a passenger die at the gate at JFK because it was shift change at the paramedic station? Not apocryphal; I was personally involved from end to end. :eek:
Can’t a guy make a stupid typo any more without getting called on it? Sheesh; some people!
Just kidding. Actually, it’s that aviation and DoD love their TLAs. FLAs are not nearly as good. So I was TLA-ifying it. Yeah, that’s the ticket. TLAs for everything. TFE!
That’s right, I totally forgot about ETOPS and the 2-engine vs. 4-engine backup/redundancy-for-safety thing. Looks like Boeing 747-8 then. Now I’m already mentally speculating about what the replacement in the year 2050 or 2060 will look like.
Except it’s not the biggest, Airbus 380 is bigger, and apparently the only VVIP order for one for a Saudi prince was cancelled but I guess it’s only a matter of time before some middle eastern head of state buys one.
(yes I realise that they would never use a non-US made plane as AF-1, but still a 747-8 aint the biggest )
There have been various intermittent noises from Russia about building more An-124s or -225s. So it’s 99.44% out of production but potentially revivable. Which is not that far from the state of the 747-8 which is in production, but on its last legs. It would not surprise me to have the very last ones built be the Prez’s. Especially if the current nascent acquisition effort doesn’t survive the changeover in Presidents.
Anyone know whether there are cases where a sitting President has flown commercial (or even a civil charter) rather than the Presidential fleet? This seems kind of unlikely.
I recall GWB being flown out to an aircraft carrier in a military jet, but that’s all.
Wait, you’re suggesting that this would be a poor choice for Air Force One just because it’s Russian-built, and they’ve only built one, and it probably shares with most of the other planes they’ve built the unfortunate tendency to fall out of the sky?
The cost of changing engine count is nothing compared to choice of airframe.
The general design of the 777 and 787 is to be long and skinny - thoroughly converted over to airline use… The 747 has the bulbous head which lends itself to military purpose.
The choice of the 747 may be locked in by its use as the National Emergency Airborne Command Post 747’s, the E4’s. Any plane to change to VC25 spec and operations may affect the E4’s total cost of ownership … less 747’s in the fleet means a higher cost per plane for the E4’s … … hence the total cost of ownership calculations to decide on what to do …
Its unclear why they don’t just have 6 E4’s. It may be Trump’s idea that E4’s are quite enough and the R&D cost for VC25 ought to be shared with the E4’s. Well the 1st Airborne Command and Control Squadron fly glorified lounges, and E3’s would do the same job… They could just have the ACCS use existing E3’s and other aircraft for use as air force one operations.
Then again, There’s 30 E3’s for the USA alone… They are getting old and a total cost of ownership projection shows that R&D on a replacement may be money well spent… spend the 4 billion on R&D for a plane that replaces all E3, E4 and VC25… The B52’s and many other USA military aircraft are 50’s to 70’s airframe designs with modern upgrades hanging off them… why not produce a new airframe designed for military use … you’ll hear “but any design to cover multiple jobs will be compromised and not the best for any job”. Well hang on… surely long range air craft need the same cockpit accommodation and communications rooms up the front ? They all need the same communications, radar (except the E3 size radar), missile defence and other standard military systems added.
Wouldn’t the R&D for reducing the operating costs of the replacement AF1 also flow onto the replacement aircraft for E4, E3… B52 … C5 … other bomber and cargo planes, reducing their operating costs and ensuring the platforms are modernised and at less risk of Concord style grounding ? Because the airframe is getting older and older there may be age related issues that take years to diagnose … Airframes which were put into production with the aim of being similar to airliners are now still in military use when there is no such airline use of that platform !
The E-4 was in USAF service well before the VC-25, and has a much different mission than the VC-25. The two are different enough (different engines and flight instruments/avionics, to say nothing of the mission equipment) that the cost of ownership for one, has little-to-nothing to do with the other. Comparing the two is comparing apples and oranges.
The E-3 is a completely inappropriate aircraft for transporting people from point A to point B. Comparing the E-3 to either the E-4 or the VC-25 is comparing an apple to a chicken breast or a steak.
“OTO?” OTO shorthand for OTOH? Wow.
