President Donald Trump revealed his design this week for a new Air Force One, showing off a set of drawings in the Oval Office that replace the Kennedy-era light blue paint job with a more masculine red, white and black.
The current livery is dominated by blue, the color of the Democratic Party. Trump's re-do has splashes of Republican red.
The result resembles the color scheme of Trump's personal Boeing 757, which 2016 campaign crowds called 'Trump Force One.'
'We had different choices, here,' Trump told ABC News, saying that he had come up with the design concepts himself. Artists' renderings show variations in the color of the engines and the depth of the underbelly's dark tones.
Donald Trump showed off a new design for Air Force One that he wants Boeing to apply to a pair of planes due for delivery in 2024
The president said last year that he wanted a red, white and blue color scheme to replace the cyan and robin's egg blue paint job that dates from the Kennedy administration
Jackie Kennnedy, the first lady at the time, worked with an industrial designer on the look and feel of the jets that the last 11 presidents have flown on. The design was modified slightly for the different body shape of the double deck 747-200Bs which now fly as Air Force One
The president's personal Boeing 757, dubbed 'Trump Force One' by reporters and campaign crowds, has a similar color scheme to what he's proposing for the government
The $3.9 billion pair of Boeing 747s that will replace the current presidential planes – there's always a backup – won't be ready for flight until at least 2024, making it unlikely Trump will ever get to fly on them as president.
'I'm doing that for other presidents,' he said. 'Not for me.'
'Air Force One' isn't really a specific plane. It's the radio call sign of any aircraft the President of the United States is aboard.
But the name has become shorthand of the specific jumbo jet that attracts attention and photographers wherever it lands.
The president announced 11 months ago that he would order Boeing to give its next generation a face-lift when it swaps the 747-200B series for a pair of 747-800 planes.
'It's a 747, but you know, it's a much bigger plane,' Trump said in an interview broadcast Thursday. 'It's a much bigger wing span.'
While the president claims to have muscled Boeing into dropping $1.6 billion from the project's price tag, members of Congress are objecting to how much control he has over its look and feel.
Trump boasted to an ABC News interviewer that he had proposed many modifications himself
In a hearing of the Democrat-run House Armed Services Committee, Democratic Rep. Joe Courtney of Connecticut prodded his colleagues into restricting how much money can be spent on visual renovations.
'The president will have an opportunity to make some suggestions and changes to the plane,' he said as he introduced an amendment to the spending bill that funds the Boeing contract.
'Additional paint can add weight to the plane,' he said, and 'additional fixtures inside can also add to cost and delays to the delivery of the plane.'
Republican Rep. Bradley Byrne of Alabama shot back: that the move 'looks like an attempt to just poke at the president.'
'Prior to 2017, I don't recall attempts to block things like paint colors,' he said.
California Democratic Rep. John Garamendi said in the hearing that Air Force One is 'a representation of the power of the United States, the power of the president.'
'If someone wants to change its appearance, its scheme, then we ought to have a say in that.'
Turning the attack: Brian Schatz, one of the two Democratic senators from Hawaii, suggested that the redesign was an attempt to draw attention away from other scandals
New design: A rare color picture showing the Kennedys in front of the Air Force One design which they oversaw. The photograph was taken when they landed in San Antonio, Texas, the day before JFK was assassinated. Air Force One at the time was a Boeing 707
In the 1997 Hollywood blockbuster 'Air Force One,' a president played by Harrison Ford fights off terrorists in mid-air and bails out in a one-man escape pod – a feature that Trump says is not planned for the new jets
The last Air Force One reboot came during John F. Kennedy's presidency when industrial designer Raymond Loewy worked with first lady Jackie Kennedy on a sky blue and cyan motif.
That design stayed when the converted Boeing 747-200 planes President Trump flies on were placed into service in 1990.
Seven years later the plane entered the slipstream of entertainment news with the introduction of 'Air Force One,' a Hollywood blockbuster starring Harrison Ford as a president who fights off terrorists in the air.
In the film, the president escapes a crashing-and-burning plane in a one-man escape pod.
'Everyone wants to know, is there a pod or not?' ABC asked Trump. 'Seen the movie "Air Force One"? ... The famous pod that flies out of the back?'
'Oh, I see,' Trump chuckled.
'But, yeah – no.'
Other comparisons were made online for the new livery, including to the Trump Shuttle, his failed venture into the airline industry which flew from 1988 to 1992; and even to the former U.S. Postal Service livery for its delivery vans.
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