Seems like Boeing is feeble nowadays.

“President Donald Trump is so desperate for a new Air Force One jet that he asked a Florida-based company to overhaul a plane once used by the Qatari government.

The moves comes amid years-long delays in the provision of two replacements for the aging presidential planes that the president commissioned during his last time in office.

After becoming frustrated at Boeing's apparently inability to deliver the order Trump wants L3Harris, a defense contractor, to transform the luxury aircraft previously used by Qatar by the fall, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Back in February, Trump traveled to Palm Beach International Airport and toured the plane on the tarmac.

Based on pictures of interior, which boasted leather furniture along with glimmering floors and ceilings, it matched perfectly with Trump's famously opulent taste in décor.

Its a major setback for Boeing, which had been tapped during Trump's first term to deliver a new pair of state-of-the-art planes to replace the old ones that have been in service since George H.W. Bush administration. …”

DailyMail article:
https://mol.im/a/14673127

They have one of the new planes (VC-25B, IIRC) in a Boeing facility in San Antonio being upgraded. I saw a pretty good documentary on it. Trump bought it his first term at a good discount. Seems shameful that Boeing has taken more than 4 years to renovate it.

Seems to me Boeing (or whoever the contractor is) must be milking the federal contract. There are significant upgrades, such as adding a cargo hatch and a LOT of specialized comms equipment, but it definitely should have been delivered by now. . .

Update: wiki says it was supposed to be delivered in 2024, but that has been pushed to 2029. That's freaking ridiculous and disgraceful. 5 years should have been plenty of time to build a new plane from the ground up. .

The current VC-25As are 35 years old. I agree, Boeing should have had the new ones done by now. I'd be concerned about the security ramifications of simply converting an existing business jet, though...there's a lot of specialized security equipment, comms, countermeasures, etc. that go into the Presidential aircraft. Is a third-party contractor going to be able to provide all that in less than a year?

IMHO A Status project like Air Force One should have been delivered on time.

Boeing invests a lot of money in lobbyists as reflected but the recent award of the Air Force's Next Generation Air Dominance future fighter jet.

quote:

Mar 25, 2025Mar 25, 2025
Boeing has been awarded a contract to build the Air Force's next-generation manned jet fighter, the F-47, in a deal that could top $50 billion.

Probably Boeing has a big DEI department.

Not sure about DEI. Their quality control department sucks and they do spend a lot of money on lobbyists. They used to be the premier defense contractor.

their reputation is in the shitter right now

time to get a new contractor - perhaps Airbus would be interested, as Boeing has demonstrated they're not up to the task

the ONLY reason they got the Next-Gen deal was to keep them from going bankrupt. Give one to Lockheed, give one to Boeing. Doesn't matter if its a good or bad platform

Boeing went downhill the day the moved their HQ off the airfield

their space division is a joke

The only things Boeing can reliably produce are delays and excuses.

quote:

Boeing went downhill the day the moved their HQ off the airfield

Buying McDonell-Douglas didn't help.

Maybe Musk will create AirX. Would wipe out Boeing.

Well he created SpaceX and Dragon beats the Starliner hands down.

Starliner is good at stranding people in orbit.

Wasn't it Boeing who cried during Trump's first term for solidifying the AF1 contract that required Boeing to actually abide by the terms set in the original contract and complete it at budget?

^^^

that sounds vaguely familiar

too much consolidation in the aerospace industry and its coming home to roost

Rockwell, General Dynamics, McD were all solid companies who caved in and bought out by CPA's who destroyed the engineering talent

Put engineers WITHOUT MBA's in charge of engineering companies and let them do their thing

Boeing is too big to be managed effectively and we're paying the price

I'll bet that AF1 could be finished within a year, but I'm not sure I'd want to fly on it

There was a time, a few years ago now, when I worked at a local job shop for aerospace. We were asked to perform a task that the rest of the industry moved away from. Ours was one of a handful of places still working from that particular process spec.

The way the request was made implied it may have been for AF1.

So, yes, I'd say it is probably time for some new birds and if it were up to me, they wouldn't be Boeing made.

The problems for Boeing started when they switched from a company once managed by engineers to one managed by businessman..

Yep and took HQ away from the hangar where they were doing all the work

quote:

Originally posted by whanson_wi:
The only things Boeing can reliably produce are delays and excuses.

New KC-46 Remote Vision System Slips Another 18 Months, to Summer 2027

May 6, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak and Chris Gordon

The Air Force and Boeing are now projecting that they will field the Remote Vision System 2.0 on the KC-46 tanker by summer 2027. The new date is nearly two years longer than previously anticipated, and four years later than originally expected.

Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin first reported the schedule slip during a House Appropriations Committee hearing, saying RVS 2.0 remains the “pacing item” among the KC-46’s half-dozen or so deficiencies, and “we’re probably looking at another 18 months” before it is corrected. He suggested that the other major problems with the aircraft—a “stiff” refueling boom, issues with the environmental control system, and others—will be fixed sooner...

Complete article:

https://www.airandspaceforces....s-slips-summer-2027/

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:

quote:

Boeing went downhill the day the moved their HQ off the airfield

Buying McDonell-Douglas didn't help.

I would say it didn’t help McDonnell-Douglas either.

Currently the only portion of Boeing that is profitable is the military aircraft formerly produced by McDonnell-Douglas.

The Strike Eagle is a good platform - wasn’t designed by Boeing so that makes it great.

Get Lockheed to make Air Force One. Make it stealthy.