Boeing’s presidential jet contract grows to $4.49 billion

This is really getting stupid.

Boeing’s presidential jet contract grows to $4.49 billion

 

Casper’s airport is getting a towering upgrade, and it could change what comes next

Substitute. The C-32A and Donald Trump.

It's been revealed (leaked?) that Trump flew out of Turkey not an an older Air Force One, as he'd claimed, but on a C-32A .

The C-32A is a militarized 757.

This would indicate that the Iranian threat against Trump must have been deemed fairly serious, which would necessarily give rise to the question of whether or not the threat still exists.  

This behavior would suggest it does:

We didn’t have Avenger air defense missiles in Kuwait and Jordan and Saudi Arabia, but Trump has them at his Bedminster golf club

While I'm a frequent Trump critic, and don't even believe he's actually a legitimate President, I don't blame the efforts to sneak Trump out on another plane if the threats were deemed credible.  I do regard the stationing of AAA at a New Jersey golf course to be questionable while we're running out of AAA in the Middle East due to Trump's illegal war there.  He could just skip golfing or risk it.

Perhaps of more interest is who was put on the catering van to make the switch in aircraft with Trump. They were Dan Scavino, Walt Nauta and Natalie Harp.  The only one you may have heard of is Harp, whose a tall blond fitting into the general Trump harem appearance profile and who has some sort of flunky job with Trump.  The White House Press Corps rode the substituted Air Force One back as did some senior White House officials.

Now, I'm not saying everyone should have been on the 757.  I do find it interesting that the figures who were allowed to ride the substitute C-32A were not really important people.  I'm also not saying that Harp and Trump are doing anything illicit, although I do find Harp to be an odd figure.

I also wonder if every President would have taken this option.  I suspect not, but I suspect some would have.

I'm also noting how embarrassing this is. The claimed most powerful military in the world has been defeated by Iran, whose Air Force is so depleted it rarely gets anything in the air, although contrary to some claims, it has during this war, having put an F-14 in the skies on at least one occasion.

It's an existential defeat.

Thursday, August 8, 1946. First flight of the B-36.

B-36 (right) next to a B-29.

The Convair B-36 Peacemaker was flown by the United States Air Force for the first time. It had originally been conceived of as a bomber that could reach Japan from Hawaii.  It became the US's first dedicated nuclear strategic bomber.

An absolutely massive airplane, it would have a short service life, being retired in 1959 with the onset of the B-52.  It was never flown in combat.

Gen. Billy Mitchell received a posthumous Medal of Honor.  He was also posthumously promoted to Major General.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, August 5, 1946. Neil Armstrong becomes a private pilot.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, August 5, 1946. Neil Armstrong becomes a ...: Neil Armstrong of Wapakoneta, age 16, earned his student pilot's certificate flying an Aeronca Champion airplane. Aeronca Champion. It w...

Monday, August 5, 1946. Neil Armstrong becomes a private pilot.

Neil Armstrong of Wapakoneta, age 16, earned his student pilot's certificate flying an Aeronca Champion airplane.

Aeronca Champion.

It was actually his 16th birthday.

Last edition:

Friday, August 2, 1946. Vlasov executed.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Andrey Vlasov, Art, Cartoons, Collaborators, George S. Patton, German Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany, Operation Keelhaul, Personalities, Red Army, Refugees, Russian Liberation Army, Tennessee, World War Two

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, August 1, 1946. Scandinavian Airlines founded.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, August 1, 1946. Battle of Athens.: By Brian Stansberry (photographer) - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3739488 A large-scale citizen upri...

Thursday, August 1, 1946. Battle of Athens.

Scandinavian Airlines was founded as a consortium of the flag carriers of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Last edition:

Wednesday, July 31, 1946. Cracking Venona.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Aircraft, Clement Attlee, Diplomacy, Espionage, Harry S. Truman, Palestine, Personalities, USSR, Venona Files

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, August 1, 1911. First "licensed" female American pilot.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, August 1, 1911. First "licensed" female ...: Harriet Quimby became the first American woman to receive an airplane pilot's license, although that meant something significantly diffe...

Tuesday, August 1, 1911. First "licensed" female American pilot.

Harriet Quimby became the first American woman to receive an airplane pilot's license, although that meant something significantly different at the time as the government did not issue them and you did not require one to fly an airplane. 

She was killed in an airplane accident the following year at age 37.

Last edition:

Monday, July 31, 1911. End if the Porfirian legislature and of Standard Oil. Complaining Russians and Germans. First Black Boy Scouts.

Labels: 1910, 1910s, 1911, Automobiles, Boy Scouts, Distributism, Ethnicities, Germany, Industry, Iran, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Ohio (Akron), panoramic, Persia, Petroleum, Russia, United Kingdom

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, July 23, 1946. Last of the POWs sent home.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, July 23, 1946. Last of the POWs sent home.: The United States released the last of 375,000 German POWs it had held in the United States, embarking 1,385 of them on the General Yates af...

Tuesday, July 23, 1946. Last of the POWs sent home.

The United States released the last of 375,000 German POWs it had held in the United States, embarking 1,385 of them on the General Yates after transporting them from Camp Shanks, New York.

About ten POWs who had escaped during the war remained at large and were never accounted for.

The Zaibatsu, the Japanese corporations that had financed Japan's war effort, were abolished.

Many of them would be reconstituted starting in 1953, including Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Sumitomo.

Frances Ramsden and her standard poodles were on the cover of Look.

Ramsden was a model who had a very brief acting career, appearing in only three films. She later married Egyptian millionaire Adel Sabit, a cousin of King Farouk, but had to abandon Cairo due to that association. She divorced in 1975 and returned to California, where she spent the remainder of her life, passing away in 2000 at the age of 80.

The prior day's bombing of the King David Hotel made the front page of American newspapers.

It's interesting that the press referred to the Irgun as "terrorists".  The label is appropriate in varying degrees, but the attack on the King David Hotel might have been a legitimate attack, in the context of a legitimate war, if this war is regarded as that.  Terrorism itself is never justified.

The original goal of the mission was to destroy materials that identified those who had participated in the destruction of bridges a bit earlier in the uprising.

Of course, the ultimate question is whether the uprising itself was justified.  I don't feel that it was.  It's certainly the case that the failure to accommodate both the Arab and Jewish populations has resulted in 80 years of strife, although such an accommodation may not have been possible.

United Airlines addressed its customers.

United is in the news again today, looking for a solution for its customers who do not wish to fly into Insurrectionist Seditionist Narcissist International Airport in Palm Beach.

An interesting surplus item.

Last edition:

Monday, July 22, 1946. The bombing of the King David Hotel.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Haganah, Irgun, Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine, Palestine, Zionism

United Airlines in an internal memo indicates it will help passengers find a new airport to use if they object to President Donald J. Trump International Airport, formerly Palm Beach International Airport.

Good for United.

FWIW, the Palm Beach International Airport will almost certainly revert to that name after Donald Trump is a few years out of office.

New White House Helipad.

In the latest instance of White House vandalism, construction of a helipad at the White House has begun.

I'd post a photograph of it, but the only photo I can find is copyright protected, so I'll abstain.  I will note, however, that the pad is way, way, too close the White House itself.  

This is frankly a really bad idea, and some bad result will occur sooner or later. There's no excuse, however, for building a helipad that close to a structure, let alone an 18th Century structure.

Missing a rather obvious upgrade. Was; The Aerodrome: Boeing VC-25B Bridge. A shameful flying monument.

The Aerodrome: Boeing VC-25B Bridge. A shameful flying monument.: This blog was never intended to be political, but in the age of Donald Trump, which will go down as the most corrupt political era in U.S. h...

So Trump went to the NATO summit in Turkey and, at some point, it dawned on somebody that this meant he was a stone's throw from Iran. . . and that maybe Air Force One made for a good target.

Frankly, the war in Iran has been very surprising in numerous ways, including htat much of what had always been predicted about such a war just did not occur, at least so far.  For instance, it had always been assumed that Iran would activate sleeper cells in the US if a war occured.  Right now, given that nothing occurred, we have to assume that Iran either has remarkable restraint, or it doesn't have sleeper cells  Nothing has happened.

Closing the Strait of Hormuz should have been no surprise at all, but what has been a surprise is Iran's resilience to attack.  People thinking that defeating Iran would be easy were always completely delusional, and indeed it won't happen unless the US commits troops the ground in very large numbers, but country's ability to just shrug off repeated attacks is really impressive.  It's engaged in some major missile offensives during the war and even now has only used a faction of what it has.  Early beliefs that all its launchers were taken out proved to be completely erroneous. 

Anyhow, while Trump was embarrassing the United States in Turkey the negotiations, such as they were, between Trump's son in law and the equally unqualified former lawyer and real estate figure that Trump has charged with this matter, fell apart.  J. D. Vance, occasionally saddled with trying to get the ink dry on some settlement, isn't working on it and is instead touring around the country making stupid statements in from of the Screw American Voters Act.  Trump used the opportunity, in addition to insulting Spain, to insult the Iranians, who were already pretty much ignoring him.

The it dawned on somebody that the new Qatari Royal Coach lacks electronic countermeasures, unlike the other jets in the Air Force One stable.

Oops.

Given that, one of the old Presidential buses was flown over to haul Trump around and the new one was flown to RAF Mildenhall on the excuse that the airmen might want to see it.

Yeah, a big airplane. What a treat for airmen.

The real reason, of course, was that it dawned on somebody that given as the plane has no countermeasures if the Iranians took a shot at it, only luck and fancy maneuvers, maybe, would keep the giant plane in the air.  And as Donald Trump murdered the head of the Iranian state, worrying that the Iranians would figure that turn about was fair play isn't irrational.  For that matter, even if the Iranian state might not attempt that, there's plenty of irregular forces in the region that might not particularly love Donald.

So, the US has sunk $400,000,000 into this dubious gift and it isn't as capable as the older aircraft.

As earlier reported here, when Trump vacates the Oval Office, which he has no legal right to be in already, the new Air Force One is supposed to be going to a Trump Presidential Library.  What a joke.  And an expensive one on the American taxpayer.  

Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution states:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Congress has so suspended its duties that getting anyone to enforce this clause seems like a lost cause right now, but maybe in a future presidency somebody will dust the document off, walk down to Congress, dope slap the whole body until the current deadwood leaves (John Barrasso, looking at you) and people who actually will do their job reappear.  Should that occur, this airplane should not leave the Air Force inventory.  But what to do with it is another question.  $400,000,000 have been spent on it. 

There are already two new Air Force One's being built.  Those ones will be properly equipped.  The existing Air Force Ones already are.  Hopefully not another dime is spent on this one.

But that, frankly, puts it in the domestic hauler category.  I suppose it could be used for that, save for the fact that it's a national embarrassment. 

Given that, my prediction is that it will be junked.  I don't think it'll ever go to a Trump presidential library, assuming one is every built  Trump's already 80 years old and every morning when he wakes up the Grim Reaper is there asking how he's feeling.  It won't be used by a future President, and it's not going to be used by the Air Force for anything.

It's just a waste.

Boneyard of the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona.

It'll go to top men.  Top men.