President Donald Trump’s search for an alternative Air Force One has supposedly taken a new turn, with reports that L3Harris is being tapped to modify a Boeing 747-8 once belonging to the ruling family of Qatar. The background to this is the long-running delays in Boeing’s program to complete two future VC-25B presidential aircraft. New aircraft are required to replace the Air Force’s two existing and increasingly tough to support VC-25As, the first of which entered service in 1990. However, there are big questions around the feasibility of an “interim” Air Force One, especially bearing in mind its exacting requirements for communications, security and survivability.
According to a report from business news channel CNBC, L3Harris Technologies is set to work on modifications to the former Qatari 747. The channel cited “a person familiar with the matter who wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.” TWZ has approached L3Harris for comment. Interestingly, only last month, reports emerged connecting L3Harris with communications modifications for Trump’s personal Boeing 757, or “Trump Force One.” We did not get a response to our inquiries.
Earlier this year, reports were circulating on how Trump was looking at alternative options for the next Air Force One, including how he had reportedly inspected the former Qatari jet at Palm Beach International, Florida. As you can read about in this previous in-depth piece, the 12-year-old aircraft previously belonged to the ruling family of Qatar but was subsequently refurbished and then went into private ownership.
As it stands, the Air Force is waiting to replace its current Air Force One fleet, comprised of two VC-25As that are based on the older 747-200 model. 747-200s have all but disappeared from the skies and finding parts and general support for the type is getting harder and more expensive with each passing year.
The designated replacements for these legacy Air Force Ones are the two VC-25Bs that Boeing is converting from 747-8i airliners, as you can read more about here.
With production of the 747 having ended for good in December 2022, the VC-25Bs are being converted from existing, second-hand airframes. This has been far from straightforward. There have also been issues with acquiring components for the aircraft since some of the manufacturers have gone out of business, as well as changing requirements on “evolving potential threats.”
Last summer, the planned first flight was pushed back to March 2026, a delay of 16 months.
Earlier this week, it was confirmed that the VC-25Bs may not be delivered until 2029 at the earliest — this would mean Trump would not get the opportunity to make use of the aircraft before leaving office after his second term ends. At one point, a first delivery was slated for December 2024.
All these delays have led to Boeing recording losses of more than $2 billion on the program, the contract for which was negotiated on a fixed-price basis.
The aircraft are already staggeringly expensive, with the program set to cost around $4.7 billion for the aircraft alone. No previous aircraft has ever cost so much, and that’s before accounting for other expenses, such as an enormous new hangar at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, valued at around $250 million. Even the VC-25B’s manuals are costing many tens of millions of dollars.
The prestige of the new Air Force Ones, the mounting costs and delays, and Trump’s affinity for and experience with luxury aircraft, have seen the 45th and 47th president take a very personal interest in the program.
Trump claims to have single-handedly slashed the cost of the jets, although that is debatable. After being elected for a second time, he has become even more active in trying to get the program back on track.
According to reports from earlier this year, Trump has been looking at ways of accelerating the delivery of the two VC-25Bs, including relaxing security clearances for those working on the jets. The implications of this are something TWZ has discussed in detail in the past.
Close Trump ally Elon Musk, de facto leader of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has also been drafted in.
Boeing’s CEO Kelly Ortberg told CNBC in January this year that “we’re working with Elon to see what we can do to pull up the schedule.”
“Elon Musk is actually helping us a lot in working through the requirements … so that we can move faster and get the president those airplanes delivered,” Ortberg added.
However successful these efforts are in revitalizing the VC-25B program, they are not expected to bring an aircraft into service within the required timeline.
This has led to interest in an “interim” Air Force One, with the ex-Qatari 747-8 reportedly the chosen candidate.
The latest report suggests that L3Harris may already be been lined up to transform the super luxurious 747-8i into a U.S. presidential aircraft. The company is one of a small number of companies that could handle a project of this size and scope, with the other obvious contractor being Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), which was previously contracted to deliver a fleet of highly specialized Survivable Airborne Operations Center (SAOC) aircraft, also based on 747 airframes.
Still, it’s unclear if this aircraft could be brought into service much more quickly than the VC-25Bs already being converted into Air Force One aircraft by Boeing.
The rapid introduction of the converted ex-Qatari jet would almost certainly require an aircraft with drastically reduced specifications compared with the VC-25B.
Some idea of what that might look like was provided after Musk reportedly visited the Boeing facility in San Antonio, Texas, last December, looking at ways to accelerate the production of the VC-25Bs.
As well as issues of security clearances, Musk has reportedly also been critical of the amount of time built into the program for flight testing.
“The idea was that we could just strip out a lot of the military stuff, just give the president a good-looking new airplane to fly in with commercial capabilities and maybe some minimal military upgrades,” an unnamed former Pentagon official told The New York Times, after Musk’s apparent visit to Boeing in San Antonio.
While there are ways of getting an Air Force One-type jet into service more quickly, it’s highly questionable if the end product would meet the strict requirements for the critical ‘continuity of government’ mission, which you can read about in detail here. It also includes needing to be able to connect with the National Command Authority at any time, as this underpins America’s nuclear deterrent, and operating in the most demanding situations, including a nuclear apocalypse. Such an aircraft requires hardening against the effects of electromagnetic pulse (EMP), extensive secure communications systems, vast power generation, and a very comprehensive self-defense suite, to name just a few major modifications.
As we have addressed before, the ex-Qatari 747-8 is not suited for fulfilling these demanding requirements, especially since the Air Force has previously talked about getting an interim jet into service “within a year’s time.”
Of course, Trump and Musk may have other ideas, one of which might involve bringing the ex-Qatari jet into service in a more basic configuration, one that wouldn’t necessarily be suitable for the existing demands of the presidential airlift missions. Then, the ‘full-spec’ Air Force Ones could be utilized once they are finally delivered. But this would cause a cascade of issues for the White House, Secret Service, and the Air Force as the entire playbook of how the president operates while in the air would have to be reworked. The risks to the president’s safety would also increase and major contingencies would have to be built around not having an aircraft as capable as Air Force One needs to be, according to existing requirements.
Then there is the money. Where is the funding coming from for this project? The aircraft itself will cost hundreds of millions and even the minimal communications and defensive modifications will cost much more. It will still have to be tested and once the VC-25Bs are ready, what will happen to it? So this will all have to be figured out. Also, in an era of DOGE, rushing a stop-gap Air Force One replacement so that the president can enjoy a newer jet for a few years seems like it would be billed as the absolute epitome of waste by many. This is especially true as the existing VC-25As are still operating and there is also a fleet of C-32As that execute the Air Force One mission more often now on domestic travels.
Taken into account, this all sounds pretty far-fetched, but one thing that is clear is that the Air Force One program is one in which Trump continues to take a keen interest, and further dramatic developments shouldn’t be ruled out.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com