If you’re a reporter covering the U.S. Department of Defense’s acceptance of a luxury jet from Qatar, Alex Wagner, adjunct professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, is available for interviews. Please see his comments below. To schedule an interview, contact Vanessa Marquette, media relations specialist, at vrmarque@syr.edu.
“Yesterday’s report that the Air Force’s plans to take on the challenge of transforming a Qatari plane into Air Force One (known as the VC-25B) for President Trump’s travel this year, there is little more the Air Force can do besides a paint job and installation of an updated communications suite—both of which would fall dangerous short of the known communications, security, and survivability requirements of a presidential jet.
Even the painting scheme (known as livery) serves a purpose, as dark blue color of Trump preferred livery was assessed to absorb added heat compared to the traditional Air Force One colors, and that such heat could disrupt certain commercial components and thus require additional certification and testing.
For normal presidents, such an aircraft would be retrofitted to provide similar capabilities to the White House situation room, along with an aerial refueling capability, hardened communications, and equipment designed to resist nuclear radiation and transmit classified information at the highest possible level. That doesn’t even include defensive countermeasure modifications not needed for a commercial aircraft. Given the regular maintenance costs, it seems like the Qataris couldn’t afford to keep the plane themselves and thus gifting it to Trump was a way to get it off their hands.
Given this administration’s cavalier treatment of security protocols surrounding highly classified information as evidenced by the Signal fiasco, it’s likely that the Air Force will be asked to cut corners and modify security and survivability requirements to allow Trump to fly in the garish gold-plated luxury he so desperately seeks. But Americans are going to have to foot the bill to provide even these minimal upgrades to Trump’s “Bribery Class” airlift requirements while he’s in office. And with reports that the jet will be gifted to a Trump presidential library potentially before he leaves, it sure seems like he’s planning to stiff taxpayers the same way he ripped off plumbers, painters, and bartenders at his clubs when he was in business.
What makes this saga even more inexplicable is that the VC-25B Boeing replacement contract is the one Trump personally intervened in to negotiate in his first term and that earlier this year, an Air Force official noted that with some modifications to requirements, the VC-25B presential jet could be delivered by 2027.”
