The U.S. Air Force has no ideas to replace its tiny fleet of Boeing 757s despite a collection of superior-profile breakdowns in recent months that has delayed vacation for VIPs these as Vice President Kamala Harris.
In excess of the weekend, Harris was starting off her very first international journey as VP to Guatemala and Mexico when the C-32A she was touring on, an improved 757 utilized for transport, asked for an emergency return to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, about a specialized difficulty.
“I am great. I’m superior,” she reported when deplaning, according to Bloomberg White House reporter Jennifer Epstein, who was accompanying Harris on the trip. The plane was in a position to land safely.
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Prior to landing, Symone Sanders, Harris’ spokeswoman, advised media representatives aboard the aircraft there have been no major protection problems. A backup C-32 was then applied to fly the vice president and her workers to their spot.
In 2018, the C-32 that then-initial girl Melania Trump was traveling on was pressured to return to Andrews soon after smoke stuffed the cabin. Officers at the time claimed the aircraft had “a mechanical challenge.”
Andrews, property of the 89th Airlift Wing, is very best known for its special airlift mission to transportation VIPs these types of as the president and vice president. It is residence to the VC-25 plane, acknowledged as “Air Drive Just one” when the president is aboard the C-32A the C-37A, a Gulfstream V the C-37B, a Gulfstream 550 and the C-40, an upgraded Boeing 737-700 company jet.
Though the C-32 will keep on being in the fleet, the Air Pressure will not go after financial investment in the airframe further than now planned modifications, in accordance to the service’s fiscal 2022 budget request. DefenseOne was very first to notice the Air Pressure has shelved plans to obtain an additional Air Force Two plane.
“The C-32 Executive Transportation Recapitalization plan was meant to substitute the getting older C-32A plane fleet,” according to the Exploration, Improvement,Test and Analysis Price range Product Justification for the system.
As a substitute, remaining funding for the C-32 system was not too long ago “utilized to the evaluation and maturation of state-of-the-art superior pace transport scale plane,” the budget request states.
The Pentagon very last yr awarded three firms contracts to start out prototyping a supersonic aircraft that could someday have the president and other officers all over the planet in 50 percent the time.
In August 2020, the service’s Presidential and Government Airlift Directorate awarded a $1 million modest business enterprise innovation investigation period II contract to Exosonic, a start out-up aerospace business, to get started the style and advancement of a minimal-growth executive airlift thought. That identical month, the Air Pressure awarded Hermeus Corp., yet another start off-up developing Mach 5 professional aircraft, a $1.5 million Other Transaction Authority Section II agreement to start out investigation on how it could modify its commercial prototype to fit the military’s VIP fleet.
And a month afterwards, Aerospace company Growth Supersonic received an innovation exploration agreement for an undisclosed total from the company.
The projects are still yrs away from turning into fact.
Increase Supersonic signed a 15-plane order deal with United Airlines final week for its supersonic plane — at $200 million a piece — to be commercially prepared by 2029 at the earliest.
How the technology will be utilised or used to the military is but to be established. Till then, the C-32 — flying given that 1998 — will press on, officers have reported.
“[Recapitalizing the C-32 is] not on the desk right now,” Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, head of Air Mobility Command, advised reporters in February.
“The C-32 is a incredibly capable aircraft,” she stated, including that the planes get incremental but required updates to their command and command programs “to assure that our senior leaders remain linked at all instances.”
— Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@armed service.com. Comply with her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.
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