By the time #Trump toured the aircraft on Feb. 15, discussions about how to acquire the plane had changed. The talk among senior aides to Trump shifted from a government-to-government sale to a *donation*.
That was a surprise to #AirForce officials. At no point, #Pentagon officials said, did the Air Force propose that the plane be donated.
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…Government officials in #Qatar — who had long wanted to unload the plane — had a different version of the sequence of events, according to a person familiar with their timeline.
They were willing to send the jet to Florida for #Trump to take a personal tour. But the expectation was that the plane would be sold to the United States, not offered as a gift.
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…But no specific terms of the planned deal have been made public, & the ability of a future *Trump library* to take possession of the plane remains murky. And ethical issues are not the only complication.
Even if the terms of the transfer are finalized, current & fmr #AirForce acquisition ofcls have cautioned that getting the Qatari plane ready to be used by #Trump would not be easy.
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Boeing has already spent 5 years transforming the 747 planes the #Pentagon bought into #AirForceOne jets, w/upgrades including communications capabilities, missile defense systems & other measures to protect the planes from an EMP that could be caused by a nuclear bomb.
Dozens of small cracks in the body of the planes—which are commonly found in the 747-8 #Qatar plane model as well—also had been identified & repaired.
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…“It’s a big beast,” Marc Foulkrod, an aerospace engineer who at one pointtried to help #Qatar sell the plane, said in an interview….
“Boeing made a great airplane, & it’s a classic piece when you do the VIP version,” said Foulkrod, who has a consulting firm that helps wealthy clients & heads of state buy jets.
But such planes have a limited number of buyers. “You might find that one-off guy that has a super ego that wants to buy one & ride around it,” Foulkrod said.
#Qatar’s plane has a luxurious interior, but considerable work would be needed to prep the plane to serve as #AirForceOne —including ridding the jet of any hidden electronic listening devices & adding advanced communications equipment & specialized systems to protect the plane from a missile attack or other threats. And even if the plane is donated, the cost of those retrofits would be enormous, acc/to current & fmr #Pentagon ofcls: at least $1 billion.
