Jesus, I'm stoned.

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Screw Lost - this is beginning to look like Sphere.

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The current VC-25's, of which there are two, have *at least* 20 years of useful life left on them. These planes fly only rarely, so they're the equivalent of a Sunday driver's cars. And 747's last around 100,000 cycles (takeoff + landing) before being either majorly overhauled or put out to pasture. I would doubt the VC-25's have more than 5,000 cycles each so far.

And it's not like the government can just sell them like a used car. They're full of all sorts of top secret stuff, including in their basic construction. All they can really do is donate them to a museum.

A new A380 outfitted as Air Force One would be in the billions of dollars. And you'd need two of them.

This would basically be throwing money away on a non-American, unnecessary purchase during a deep recession.

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"Get off my plane!"

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The stabilizers "canards" on the tails are cool though.

The idea of replacing the jet during such an economic crisis is not kosher, it's like so expensive just to start up both Air Force I and II -- As long as the current jets are in good flying condition, they shouldn't replace/upgrade now.

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It doesn't really matter, as with the economy in the toilet, there's no way Congress will allow those tankers to be built by anyone but Boeing.

It also doesn't matter that Airbus was going to build a plant in Mobile, Alabama to assemble them, out of mostly European parts of course.

The original bid requirements were fixed anyway, as they didn't allow Boeing to make the 777 an alternative for the tankers.

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