INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Donald Trump Promises New Air Force One Will Be Red, White, And Blue

By Aaron Homer
Published on: 07:00 PST, Jul 17, 2018

Donald Trump promised on Tuesday that the new Air Force One will be red, white, and blue, Bloomberg is reporting.

Officially, whatever aircraft the president is on at the time is given the call sign “Air Force One.” So if the president were to fly in his buddy’s Cessna, that aircraft would be “Air Force One” for as long as the president was on it. But colloquially, when speaking of “Air Force One,” we’re generally referring to one of two aircraft on which the president flies. Those have the much more mundane names SAM 28000 and SAM 29000.

And those planes date back to the Bush 41 administration.

The government has been working with Boeing on replacing the aging aircraft, whose paint schemes date back to the Kennedy administration. And as the Inquisitr reported earlier this month, Trump was in on this discussions. At the time, it was reported based on anonymous, insider sources that Trump had been angling for a color scheme that was “more American.” And on Tuesday, he confirmed it.

“It’s going to be the top of the line, the top in the world. And it’s going be red, white and blue, which I think is appropriate. Boeing gave us a good deal. And we were able to take that. But I said, ‘I wonder if we should use the same baby blue colors?’ And we’re not.”

Actually, Trump was a little more judicious in his word choice; according to the insider source who was present during the Boeing meetings, Trump reportedly said that he hates “that Jackie Kennedy color.”

The prospect of a new design for Air Force One hasn’t exactly gone over well. Air Force officials are reportedly appalled, and presidential historian Michael Beschloss is equally disgusted.

“Every time you see that blue trim and the words ‘UNITED STATES OF AMERICA’ spelled out in that same typeface as an early version of the Declaration of Independence, it brings back JFK landing in Germany to speak at the Berlin Wall, Richard Nixon flying to China, Ronald Reagan stepping off the plane to see Gorbachev in Iceland and a thousand other scenes of Presidents in our past.”

Meanwhile, the internet is, collectively, having a blast with the idea of Trump being in charge of Air Force One’s new color scheme.

The New York Post, for example, opts for a color scheme that just screams “America! Hell yeah!”

Sacramento Bee cartoonist Jack Ohman also has an idea.

The new Air Force One, new color scheme or no, isn’t likely to leave the factory before mid-2021.

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