The donation by Qatar of a 400 million dollar luxury jet to President Trump that he plans to retrofit and use as Air Force One is a useful way to make an upgrade of the older personal aircraft used by Presidents to get about the world. Democrats say its a national security threat, perhaps because they had the old Air Force Ones wired for sound and video and will no longer be able to surveil President Trump on a new aircraft.
In the modern world of stealth drones and high speed micro attack vectors the flying whale mega-jet sort of Air Force One may be a tempting target for new vectors that can disregard electronic, ir and other counter-measures to thwart conventional anti-aircraft missiles. A President probably should have a tougher aircraft capable basically of persisting to exist for a while in an aerial war environment. A retrofitted B-1 bomber would be somewhat Spartan and eschew cocktails and the press. If there was a larger, stealth air vehicle for the President of the United States that would be better. That would require a new design and production though. Possibly a manufacture of five aircraft in a one-off phenomenon would be adequate until the next generation. If the stealth aircraft were able to take off and land like a Harrier as a VSTOL that would be even better.
No comments:
Post a Comment