Originally Posted by
tdracer
The sort of 'gold plating' stuff I'm talking about on the new AF1 747s isn't the sort of thing The Donald (or any president I'm familiar with) would care or probably even know about. What I'm referring to is more associated with - shall we say - mission capability (and the sort of missions it added capability for have little to do with hauling the POTUS around). As for range, the 747-8 is already an 8,000 mile capable aircraft, and that's before they add the aerial refueling capability (which the current AF1 already has). That's why I wondered if the real desire was some new military platform based on the 747-8, but since the 747-8 will be out of production by the end of the year, either I was wrong or the 'plan' never made it to fruition.
BTW, the existing AF1 is very fancy and plush, but in a very businesslike way. Lots of nice leather and fine wood furniture. It's in no way lavish with the things like gold toilet fixtures that showed up on some of the VIP 747's bound for the Middle East. One of my special memories of working on the current AF1 was after an incredibly long two weeks (16-17 hour days for 12 days straight - the engines were a mess when I got there, and I had to cover both the day and evening shifts). Finally, we did engine runs on a Sunday (minimum disruption to the other activities) and the engines performed perfectly - I was done, but they had other engine running stuff to do (hydraulics/pneumatics/electrical generation) and they didn't want to shutdown to let me off. So I went down to the president's office and watched an NFL football game on the big screen TV with a couple of mechanics.
My briefing on the new AF1 didn't go into the interior furnishing, but I'd be surprised if they are much different than the current aircraft (oh, and I'm glad Trumps AF1 paint scheme is DOA)
a new flash aircraft does not bring a game changing level of efficiency, any 737 replacement would have similar engines to the A320neo, the economics just would not justify the change for many airlines who are already invested heavily into 737 and A320 fleets and parts.
then in reality Boeing would have failed to deliver what they promised, when they promised yet again, there has not been a single new program Boeing has been able to deliver on its promises, they are seen as being an unreliable supplier.