When does the Boeing delay constitute a threat against a sitting president?
Are these outrageous Boeing Air Force One delays on purpose? We've been warned about aging avionics in military aircraft since before 9/11. That's not a coincidence either.
While the media is freaking out about Donald Trump accepting the Qatari’s gift of a 747-8 as a temporary Air Force One replacement, they don’t seem to grasp the danger of Boeing’s delays. The current fleet is over 30 years old, and Boeing is delaying fulfilling the contract until 2029 or possibly later. Usually, withing 18 months to 3 years the avionics needs to be replaced to keep up with new threats.
Air Force One Replacement Delayed Amid Boeing Trouble | Aero-News Network | May 12, 2025
“Every day we fly the existing fleet, we’re gambling with presidential security,” noted Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost of the Air Mobility Command. “These aircraft weren’t designed for 21st-century threats.”
The new White House on wings is supposed to withstand electromagnetic pulses, cyberattacks, and even missile strikes.
There have been numerous reported “mechanical issues” in 2006, 2014, and in 2017 Boeing’s mechanics caused $4 million in damage to Air Force One's oxygen system. I worked on rotary wing aircraft and not fixed wing in the army, so I don’t feel comfortable saying if there was any sabotage involved in those incidents or not.
Boeing has already gone $2 billion over budget, and they have attributed the delays and cost overruns to higher-than-expected manufacturing costs, protracted negotiations with suppliers, long lead times for specialty components, engineering changes, and shortages of skilled employees with security clearances.
Boeing previously required “Yankee White” clearances for its VC-25B program engineers — a step above the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) clearance — but they have reported issues with the clearances of some 250 employees lapsing.
This is all on top of John Barnett — the suicided whistleblower — was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after he failed to report for his third day of deposition against Boeing last year.
Qatar: America’s Real Greatest Ally in the Middle East
The mainstream and alt media are all up in arms about Qatar “buying” the White House when they were all perfectly fine when the Likudniks purchase our politicians.
Qatar has been a strategic partner for U.S. security since at least 2003 and invested $8 billion dollars in developing al-Udeid Air Base for the United States military.
Al-Udeid Base is home to the U.S. Central Command Forward headquarters, Air Force Central Command Forward, and Special Operations Command Central Command Forward, as well as Combined Joint Interagency Task Force – Syria, U.S. Central Command’s Combined Air Operations Center, and the U.S. Air Force’s 379th Air Expeditionary Wing.
It seems Qatar is a vassal of the United States and was funding Hamas with our full approval.
Charles Johnson called it on Qatar 3 years ago, so credit where’s it’s due.
L3Harris Tapped to Modify Qatari Jet
L3Harris was already involved in the Air Force One VC-25B program as a communications systems provider for Boeing and now tapped to modernize the Qatari 747-8. While I can’t find the details (for national security reasons obviously) for the L3Harris contract for Air Force One, I did find some interesting tidbits for the U.S. Air Force Global Lightning development program, the Link 16 Tactical Data Links product line, and upgrading Block 10.2 Counter Communications Systems capable of jamming enemy communications. It can give us an idea about the capabilities.
L3Harris Successfully Completes Critical Design Review for U.S. Air Force Global Lightning Experiment | L3Harris | September 10, 2024
L3Harris Technologies successfully completed a Critical Design Review (CDR) for a U.S. Air Force Global Lightning development program that validated the company’s Rapidly Adaptable Standards-compliant Open Radio (RASOR™) Modular Open System Approach (MOSA) solution ability to effectively connect service-specified waveforms from Earth to Commercial Satellite Internet (CSI) constellations.
The program is one in a series called “Defense Experiment Using Commercial Space Internet” – or “DEUCSI” – that the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Integrated Capabilities Directorate began years ago in support of the service’s Hybrid Satellite Communications (SATCOM) concept.
L3Harris has been supporting DEUCSI since its inception in 2021. The Air Force awarded the company an initial $81 million contract last year for this particular exercise, known as “Call 3,” which aimed at developing ground systems – both fixed and mobile – and airborne terminals capable of connecting both commercial and traditional military waveforms to multiple SATCOM constellations in Earth’s orbit.
US Navy Awards L3Harris Nearly $1 Billion IDIQ Contract | L3Harris | November 25, 2024
Link 16 is a fully interoperable multi-domain network that provides assured communications, situational awareness, command and control and targeting information to coalition forces around the world. L3Harris completed its acquisition of the Link 16 Tactical Data Links product line in January 2023. In addition to MIDS JTRS, L3Harris offers a full line of resilient communication devices and systems to provide access to Link 16 from virtually every platform in air, on land or at sea – with efforts underway to expand the capability to space-borne assets.
L3Harris Wins Contract to Upgrade Secretive US Space Force Weapons | The Defense Post | October 26, 2021
American technology firm L3Harris has been awarded a $121 million contract to support the modernization of 16 secretive US weapons capable of jamming enemy communications.
According to the Department of Defense, the company will be responsible for upgrading Block 10.2 Counter Communications Systems at three military bases in the country and classified locations overseas.
The communications system can reversibly deny adversary satellite communications and the early warning capabilities of enemy forces.
It seems they have airborne terminals capable of linking both commercial and military satellites in orbit. This allows them to provide secure and resilient communications to connect with coalition forces and control space-based weapons systems.
Aging Avionics Pre-9/11 Warning
The recent increase of commercial planes and military helicopter crashes seems to involve sabotage and/or electronic warfare targeting the avionics system. The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 might have been accomplished by targeting the Boeing Honeywell uninterruptible autopilot. I doubt this is a coincidence either.
The long development cycles of military weapon systems mean that, by the time it is procured, a new aircraft could be technologically obsolete, said Bill Dane, an aircraft analyst with Forecast International DMS. He said that, increasingly, electronics in military aircraft need to be updated often, in order to meet new threats. “Missiles get more sophisticated, so the aircraft have to become more sophisticated.”
You can download the book “Aging Avionics in Military Aircraft” (2001) for free. Chapter 4 goes into more detail and analysis of the issue.
It’s crazy the media probably knows all of these risks and they would still rather the President of the United States use an outdated Air Force One than retrofit an aircraft from our strategic partner Qatar. I view these outrageous Boeing delays as a threat against every sitting president and not just Trump either. In our current electronic warfare environment, the avionics and technology on those birds are woefully outdated.
You don’t have to like Trump, and I certainly have my disagreements with him, but while in office he a symbol of our country. An attack against any U.S. president or the security of Air Force One is an attack against our sovereignty.
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-DeAnna Calderón
Trump needs to get an aircraft that cannot be hacked and with no Flight Termination system