- What is going on
with the new Air Force One aircrafts? These planes who have already been built were originally supposed to enter service
next year, but after multiple delays, now they're not expected
before 2026 at the earliest. So, what is it that's taking so long? Stay tuned. (delightful tune) To start off with,
I have a bit of trivia for you. There is one small detail
in the paint scheme of the current Air Force One aircraft that would not be legal
if these jets were normal airliners. Can you guess what it is? Think about it and I'll get back to it
later in the video. The Boeing 747 is unquestionably
the second most distinctive airliner ever, after obviously, the Concorde. But probably
the most distinctive 747 of them all is not actually an airliner. It is this aircraft, or rather these aircraft
that we usually refer to as Air Force One. And before people start writing
in the comments, yes, I know that Air Force One
is not the proper name of these jets. Air Force One is a call sign that applies
to any aircraft of the US Air Force when the president
of the United States is onboard. When he is onboard an aircraft
belonging to another military branch, like a helicopter
of the US Marines for example, that aircraft then uses
the call sign Marine One. And of course, the history
of American presidential aircraft doesn't begin with the current 747s. US presidents have had dedicated aircraft
for their transport needs since even before the Second World War. However, the US president
occasionally uses other aircraft as well, especially when he wants
to keep a low profile. For example, the current president
recently flew over to Europe in a Boeing C-32, which is a military 757,
in order to visit Ukraine unannounced. The aircraft types
that have been dedicated to the presidential role
include the Boeing 314, flying boat, the military versions
of the Douglas DC-4 and DC-6, as well as the
Lockheed C-121 Constellation. And it was actually
these Lockheed Constellations that were the first aircraft
to use the call sign Air Force One. After the Lockheed Constellation,
Air Force One entered into the jet age with an aircraft based on the 707
called the VC-137C. That aircraft was then used
until the late 1980s and it was actually
the first presidential plane to use the livery that we know today, but we're going
to talk more about that later. The current presidential aircraft
entered service back in 1990 and its official designation
is the VC-25 Alpha. And they're actually based
on the Boeing 747-200 Bravo models well, sort of. When these two special jets were built
back in the 1980s, Boeing had already begun transitioning
to the production of the newer 747-300. And that meant that the current
presidential VC-25 Alpha indeed has the same fuselage
of a 747-200. But from the start, it also incorporated
some features from the 747-300, like the updated
General Electric CF6 engines that would also come to power the 747-400. But obviously,
this is not the only unique things with the current Air Force One. There are other features
that also set these planes apart from any other regular Boeing 747
operated as airliners. One example is that the VC-25 Alpha
has the ability to take on fuel inflight via a refueling receptacle in its nose
just below the cockpit. But in practice though, it seems
that this feature hasn't been used much. By contrast,
the plane has another unique feature that is being used almost all the time,
which is built in airstairs of a similar design to those
that some early 737-200 Combi models had. The VC-25 Alpha
actually has two doors with airstairs, but unlike the 737, which obviously
sits much lower to the ground, the airstairs in the Air Force One will not get you directly
to what would be the main passenger deck. The Air Force One doesn't really use
its cargo hold just for cargo, so, this wasn't a big problem. It could be retrofitted
as an entrance instead. Whenever a US President
makes an official visit and a red carpet ceremony is called for,
he normally uses the 747's regular L1 passenger door
to get in and out of his plane. But away from the cameras
or when he's in a hurry, the president and his entourage
can just use those airstairs, which is, you know, pretty logical
when you think about it. Obviously, there are many more differences
and features in these jets like military communications,
data links, and self-defense systems that we basically know nothing about. One thing that we do know
is that until 9/11, the two planes didn't have the ability
to transmit live video, but that was fixed with a later update. In fact, the two VC-25 Alphas
are getting updated all the time. And you could almost date
their photos and videos just by looking at the number of antennas
and bumps sticking out of their fuselage. But no matter how many upgrades you do, these jets are now getting old
and too expensive to run, with spare parts
becoming harder and harder to find. So, the plane that has been chosen
to replace the VC-25 Alpha is the VC-25 Bravo,
which is based on the 747-8i. In order to try
and keep the cost of this contract low, Boeing is using two already built 747-8s,
converting them into this new role. But that might turn out
to have been a mistake because as one engineer put it,
the whole program will cost them way more than if they would have
just started from scratch. And I'll tell you
exactly why that is after this. What is actually the best way to learn
maths and physics, you might wonder? Well, in my view, one of them
is definitely Brilliant, today's sponsor. Brilliant is an interactive platform
with thousands of courses, ranging from foundational
and advanced maths to AI, data science, neural networks,
computer science, and much, much more. Whether you're a student
interested in aviation or a pilot looking to brush up
on your understanding of aerodynamics, the Gravitational Physics course
on Brilliant is a great way to deepen your knowledge. This course covers everything
from Newton's law of gravity, the study of forces on objects and their resulting motion through the air
and much more. I've tried it myself
and because it's so interactive, it makes the learning experience
both fun and engaging, which is why even my kids
are huge fans of Brilliant. Each course is designed
for high velocity learning to help you stay focused
and reach your goals fast. So, to try everything
that Brilliant has to offer for free for a full 30 days,
you can visit brilliant.org/mentournow or click on the link here
in the description. The first 200 of you who does that
will get 20% off Brilliant's annual premium subscription
and you'll also help supporting my work. Now, let's continue. Now, some of you might be wondering, why does the US President need
to travel in a 747 in the first place? Maybe there weren't
many other good options back in the 1980s, but what about now? Wouldn't a newer
and more modern design like the 777 or the 787
be a better choice? Well, since this is essentially a military aircraft
used in a very specific role, we can't really know all of the reasons
why the Air Force chose the 747, but we do know
that the number of engines was a big factor in their decision. For airliners,
we normally think of redundancy as a way to ensure that planes are safe
in case of malfunctions, but modern jet engines
have proven so reliable that twin engine jets now fly
for extended periods over open oceans with no worries whatsoever. But the US military
has its own considerations for the planes that go
into carry the president. And one of them is that this aircraft
might well need to stay in the air even after losing an engine
where a civilian aircraft would just try to immediately go for a diversion. Describing its reasoning to the public,
the Air Force said that a twin engine jet that loses an engine
needs to land as soon as possible, whereas a four-engine aircraft
would need to land as soon as practical. Building on that idea, back in the 1980s
when the current aircraft was selected, the Air Force wanted something
with at least three engines. The two candidates back then
were the DC-10 and the Boeing 747, and obviously, the Boeing 747 won. The number of engines
then remained as a big sticking point for the US Air Force
when the next aircraft was selected, although initially at least,
Boeing also offered the 787 as an option. But back in 2015, the discussions
between Boeing and the Air Force were for the purchase
of two completely new aircraft. The idea to use two existing
747-8s instead came when Boeing renegotiated
the contract in 2017 after the then new president took office. Actually, already
the year before that renegotiation, the Air Force and Boeing
were looking at ways to reduce the cost of the program. And one such decision
was to omit the requirement for mid-air refueling, for example,
since, like I mentioned before, it wasn't really being used anyway. This also made sense
since the Air Force One only has to carry a fraction of the number
of passengers of a typical 747, often less than 100 people, making its range way greater
than of a normal aircraft. And of course, the newer 747-8
has more efficient engines and therefore, an even longer range,
satisfying the full needs of the military. Eventually, Boeing signed a new
fixed price contract for $3.9 billion, covering two VC-25 Bravo aircraft that would now be built modifying
two existing 747-8 passenger jets instead of factory new ones. Boeing just happened to have
two of these jets in storage because it originally built them
for Trans Aero, a Russian airline that went bust
back in 2015 before Boeing had a chance
to deliver them. The US Air Force was okay with this since the two jets
were basically new anyway. Boeing obviously liked this plan
because finding another buyer for these passenger carrying 747-8s
back in 2017 would have likely been really difficult. So, using them this way
was seen as a no-brainer. A win-win, right? Well, as it turns out, the answer to this
is a giant no for a number of reasons. First of all, something as complex
as an airliner needs a lot of time, a lot of space, and a lot of people to completely take apart
and put back together again, which is what needs to be done for a conversion
as fundamental as this one. Even with normal airliners,
the cost of a D check, which is basically
a complete overhaul of an aircraft, is so high that many airlines
don't plan to keep their planes that long in order to avoid having to do it. They prefer to replace the aircraft
with new ones instead, which is not that
much more expensive actually. Boeing has had some really
painful experience of this recently when they had to check
and rework hundreds of 787s because of possible faults between the joints
in their composite fuselages, as I have explained in a previous video. To its dismay,
Boeing found, when doing this, that these checks cost
about as much as it would have cost them just to build new aircraft because
they had to be completely stripped down. Not only that, this work
required a lot of space and of course,
a lot of skilled engineers that had to be pulled away
from the production of new jets. Boeing now faces a repeat
of this 787 rework challenge with the build of the two bespoke
presidential VC-25 Bravos. Except that this challenge
is mounting up to be even worse, since the engineers that can work
on presidential planes need to undergo some pretty serious vetting
and security checks before they can do so. And that also means that
if one or more of these engineers would have to be called away
to other Boeing projects, which actually, they often did,
then all of the work had to stop because it was impossible for Boeing
to replace these engineers at short notice. This fact has obviously introduced
even more delays, and with every delay comes a further cost increase. But at this point,
some of you might ask why was any of this a surprise to Boeing? Surely, Boeing knows what it takes
to strip down, overhaul, and generally work on an aircraft
even of this size and complexity. Sure, these jets need extensive rework,
including structural components like the installation of those extra doors
and the airstairs, but Boeing knew this too,
so, what's the problem? Well, the answer here
might actually surprise you. It's 250 miles or 400 kilometers of wire. That's how much electrical wiring
each VC-25 Bravo will have by the time that they're ready. Of course, this wasn't
a surprise for Boeing either. But one thing that Boeing
didn't adequately account for was the fact that about 90% of the wiring
that these 747-8s had used previously had to be removed and replaced. And just as importantly,
the new wiring couldn't always go in the same places
where the old wiring had gone. You see, when new aircraft
is being assembled, before each fuselage section
is being joined together, workers can fill each section with things
like hydraulic lines and wiring. This is easier to do at that stage
when the plane is still in pieces. Then as the sections
are gradually joined together, electrical wires and other systems
are also connected. As you can imagine, all of this is a lot harder
and more time-consuming to do when the plane
has already been put together. And that's not the only
wiring-related problem here. One of the conditions
in the VC-25 Bravo contract was that the two aircraft
would need to be fully compliant with current FAA certification requirements
for a new aircraft. Now, this was a bit odd
since the jets will officially be military and therefore, the FAA, technically,
has no authority over their certification. However, the US Air Force
had put this into the contract as a matter of procurement policy,
just to be on the safe side, basically. All of this might sound like typical
boring contract mumbo jumbo but it is not. It's actually very important
and a major headache for Boeing. As John Ostrower explained
in the excellent "Air Current," which I've linked to below, what this meant was that Boeing
could not simply certify the VC-25 Bravo as a variant of the existing 747. Even though we're talking about
just two jets, Boeing will have to certify
the VC-25 Bravos as if they were completely new designs. Now, you would think that for most of the certification documents
and checks, this shouldn't be a huge deal. Boeing simply has to copy
the certification paperwork that it already has from when it certified
the 747-8s back in 2011, right? Well, almost. That process
was an amended type certificate, building on the existing certification
of previous 747 variants. But a lot of things have changed
in the aircraft certification since 1970 when the original 747-100 entered service. And yes, one of those things
is the wiring certification standards. Overtime, new FAA rules have stipulated that
wiring bundles of redundant systems have to have a minimum amount
of separation between them. This was added for a very good reason, namely, to ensure that a problem
with one wire bundle couldn't affect the other nearby bundle. But when these rules were made stricter, they didn't apply
to already certified aircrafts. Now, sometimes manufacturers
would still make changes to the wiring if specific problems were found or as a precaution
after an accident or incident. But otherwise, previous wiring layouts could be grandfathered
into the certification of newer aircraft. This matter was actually a factor in the return of the 737 MAX
to service back in 2020. The aircraft's wiring and wire routing had no role in the tragic crashes
of these aircraft, but to approve
the type's return to service, the FAA and other aviation authorities insisted that Boeing updated the routing
of several wire bundles to comply with these new rules,
and Boeing obviously complied. For the new Air Force One,
what all this means is that Boeing will need to reroute
a lot of the wiring bundles in the jets. Plus, on top of that,
the Air Force will also install a lot of new systems on board,
obviously, with their own wiring. And obviously, the same separation rules will have to apply
to these new bundles as well. According to "The Air Current,"
Boeing seriously underestimated how extensive this new wiring
was going to be. In the end, it actually turned out
that the number of interfaces between the plane's normal electrics
and systems and its new subsystems were more than double
what Boeing first expected. Boeing has also had
other less important but still embarrassing
and time-consuming issues with the program including a dispute with a subcontractor
that introduced even more delays. These events, plus the pandemic,
have caused the cost of the program to go up by over $1 billion
as of last year. And remember,
this is a fixed price contract, so, that extra billion will have to come
straight out of Boeing's pockets unless they can find
some kind of loophole. For $1 billion extra,
Boeing would really have been better off making completely new aircrafts
for the VC-25 Bravo program rather than using
those existing aircrafts. Boeing CEO, Dave Calhoun,
has since said that with hindsight, Boeing probably shouldn't have agreed
to this program under these terms. And apart from the Air Force One project, Boeing also has other
fixed price military contracts, including the KC-46
inflight refueling tanker which also has gone over budget. The most recent news
about the Air Force One though involves its appearance. Because currently, the two aircraft
have a livery designed by Raymond Loewy back in the 1960s, which he did
with guidance and inspiration from Jackie Kennedy,
who didn't like the military look that the planes were painted in
back at that time. Those first 707-based VC-137Cs still had a lot of unpainted aluminium
in their bellies, which the current Air Force One also has. The previous president
had settled on a very different livery, with a dark blue underside,
but in a recent statement, the US Air Force said that such dark color would require more certification work
with the FAA. In the end, the new livery
that the Air Force presented recently is only a small update. The front of the belly of the plane
will have a slightly different light blue, and the rest of the underbelly
will be painted in a neutral color because the aluminum alloys used
in the 747-8 can't have a polished finish. Now, remember the bit of trivia
that I asked you about in the beginning? What detail in the paint scheme of the current
and even the future Air Force One would make it illegal for an airliner? Well, the answer is the doors. Airliners need to have a thick line around the frame of each door
in contrasting color, making their location easy to find
for firefighters and other rescue crew. But as you can see in any picture
showing the plane with the doors closed, the current and future of VC-25s
don't have any marking around the doors. Obviously, this is just a small detail,
but remember, the Air Force wants these planes
to comply with FAA certification rules. So, if the next Air Force One
has contrasting lines around their doors when they enter service in 2026 or '27,
well, then you guys will know why. Finally, there is one other thing
worth thinking about regarding Boeing,
the US Air Force and Military 747s. In addition to the president's VC-25, the Air Force also has a fleet
of four E-4 Bravo Nightwatch aircraft, better known as the Doomsday plane. These planes have special shielding
and communication equipment to be used in case of a nuclear war. By the way, unlike what some TikTokers
have been saying recently, if you see these planes flying, it doesn't mean
that the world is about to end. They actually fly
with quite some regularity whenever the president has to go overseas, or sometimes just to move
the US Secretary of Defense. But like the current Air Force One,
these jets are 747-200 Bravos, with three out of four being
over a decade older than the VC-25s are. The Air Force has stated that
they will need to replace them eventually for the same reasons
that it's replacing the Air Force Ones. And the specification for the next
Doomsday planes still call for, you guessed it, four engines. So, with the production
of the 747 now over, the question then becomes,
where will these jets come from? Well, we don't know, but there are a few
underused 747-8s out there that were originally configured
as business jets. If the US Air Force
wants to secure them, we will probably hear about it quite soon. Now, remember to check out
the deal that my sponsor has offered in the link below,
it really helps the channel. And get yourself some nice merch. Check out this video next or this playlist
and have an absolutely fantastic day. Bye-bye.
