Boeing Wins Contract For New Air Force One Fleet

I am still heart sick over Boeing closing the plant at LGB. I remember seeing Qatar's III's in and out of there a couple of times.

APFQatarC17AarrLGB.JPG



Here's the AF livery/version by the plant there:

APFRAFC17ArampLGB.JPG


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9ROQ_Boeing_Airforce_C_17_Copy.jpg



Here's one of India's there:

IAF%2527s+second+and+third+C-17s+at+Boeing%2527s+Long+Beach+production+facility+%2528indian+air+force1%2529+%25284%2529.jpg



Sigh
Aren't a lot of the employees being kept on for heavy maintenance on the C-17, or is the entire facility being closed? I thought I heard that a car maker was going to take over the property.
 
Aren't a lot of the employees being kept on for heavy maintenance on the C-17, or is the entire facility being closed? I thought I heard that a car maker was going to take over the property.
It's all in a state of flux. Boeing renewed it's lease until 2018 with the City for their maintenance and repair facility over off Spring Street and Redondo and their contract with just the US Air Force goes well beyond that. The rest of the program support is all down at their facility in Huntington Beach now. The entire assembly/manufacturing plant will be closed this Summer, I think in June sometime, but maybe earlier I heard. Mercedes already moved into the old 717 facility off at Conant (the Fly DC Jets sign) and is building something else over there as well. There's a lot of construction going on over by Cherry and Wardlow too.

But Boeing is and has been also moving a crap ton of positions from Puget Sound- all in the engineering area down to their other facilities in Long Beach and in Seal Beach. They are in that vein expanding their space explorations, satellites facilities down in those locations as well. Just a few months ago they opened up a huge operations and customer service venue in Seal Beach which is going to support their current commercial customers.

There is supposed to be some construction plans for all the areas around the old MD area, from offices to a park to shops, to who knows what-it keeps changing. Some huge consortium bought it all up a few years ago. The city made offers to Boeing to bring the 777x down here, but no bueno. We also have a new airport Manager now who just started a few weeks back and I was sad to see Rodriguez go. He went to IND. Great for him, crappy for us.

I was talking to a couple of the instructors over at Gulfstream maybe two or three weeks ago and Gulf is eying the Boeing manufacturing hangars now as they want to expand, but there seems to be some haggling over the costs and what it would cost them in modifications. Like they don't have enough room as it is? But they do have aircraft parked all over the damn place at their current digs. It's busier than snot over there. They also said the powers that be there were however, looking at other places as well such as RAL, (who the hell would move there? lol) somewhere in Arizona, Northern Cal someplace, or even possibly South America. Then they rolled their eyes and talked about how slowly things move there, that this all might be a ways off too.
 
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Gulfstreams current footprint might be 1/4 of Boeings currently? Unless they start building the 500 and 600 there......
 
Gulfstreams current footprint might be 1/4 of Boeings currently? Unless they start building the 500 and 600 there......
Ya know it's larger than it used to be, their hangars are huge and land area and office areas near the hangars alone. They've done some big hiring over the last couple of years and they've easy got 800 people over there and as I said there are their jets just parked all over the area there and the hangars are full even though they have almost seven acres.. There are days when there are over a dozen jets parked outside there. They have more offices over on Spring now and also sub lease a paint hangar closer to Lakewood Blvd. I just hope they stay, would be crap of they bugged out at some point.
 
Ya know it's larger than it used to be, their hangars are huge and land area and office areas near the hangars alone. They've done some big hiring over the last couple of years and they've easy got 800 people over there and as I said there are their jets just parked all over the area there and the hangars are full even though they have almost seven acres.. There are days when there are over a dozen jets parked outside there. They have more offices over on Spring now and also sub lease a paint hangar closer to Lakewood Blvd. I just hope they stay, would be crap of they bugged out at some point.
Gulstream taking over at least a portion of the property seems logical. The fact that so much skilled labor that would be looking for work also would seem like a no brainer, I have 3 friends that take care of G-650s that were outfitted there, two had vowed at one time to never take their G-550s to Long Beach again. In fact one would have his airplane go to Appleton instead of Long Beach due to past issues, the airplane is based in Burbank. All say the support from Gulfstream Long Beach is much better. Gulfstream is also launching two new models and will need to support even more customers shortly, I can tell you that when a west coast customer wants to visit their airplane during completions they would rather not have to go to Savannah. But city politics are involved so I figure Mercedes will use the space as a storage facility and all of that skilled labor will either find new jobs, move or retire. I'll keep my fingers crossed but in southern California these these things never seem to make sense when the dust settles, Just look at the Lockheed/Burbank debacle.
 
Gulstream taking over at least a portion of the property seems logical. The fact that so much skilled labor that would be looking for work also would seem like a no brainer, I have 3 friends that take care of G-650s that were outfitted there, two had vowed at one time to never take their G-550s to Long Beach again. In fact one would have his airplane go to Appleton instead of Long Beach due to past issues, the airplane is based in Burbank. All say the support from Gulfstream Long Beach is much better. Gulfstream is also launching two new models and will need to support even more customers shortly, I can tell you that when a west coast customer wants to visit their airplane during completions they would rather not have to go to Savannah. But city politics are involved so I figure Mercedes will use the space as a storage facility and all of that skilled labor will either find new jobs, move or retire. I'll keep my fingers crossed but in southern California these these things never seem to make sense when the dust settles, Just look at the Lockheed/Burbank debacle.
The City (at least it appears so) really made a serious effort to get Boeing to bring the 777x down here when there was talk of Boeing looking for another facility for it. They don't (I hope) want to lose those jobs and face the economic impact that it would bring to the area if Gulf bugged out. They already work on a large number of 650's and 550's over there and like I said, it's just busier than all hell over there. The MD area is enormous as you know and if there are plans to develop it even further at some point, there have to be some incentives for doing so and that may be why nothing much has happened so far.

The City had no issue building the large new parking structure at the airport, completely renovating the terminal (if you haven't seen it yet- it's really nice) and a lot of new eateries and small businesses moved into the terminal and they even consolidate/improved the screening area and there are nice lounge areas and upgraded features everywhere. The atrium alone is terrific. Even the gourmet food trucks that show up now are great and the outdoor eating area for them. They've made some very decent repairs and mods to the runways with the Federal grant monies,(some improvements are still waiting the FAA to get off their asses to approve), even installing and planning to install more solar panels, better/ more efficient lighting, ramp and taxi way improvements are on going and just all sorts of upgrades really.

Gulf does a wonderful job at their facility and serious it is so busy over there and I see planes parked there from all over the globe. Even Flight Safety over here has expanded and upgraded. But as we know, it all comes down to money and sometimes politics. It's a great little airport because it is so central and not too huge and the area around it is nice as far as accommodations, restaurants and proximity to the beach. It has such a variety of aircraft coming in and out of it. So hopefully their intended expansion will work out.

It's funny about the Mercedes deal....they came out with all sorts of plans for what they will be doing over there but I haven't seen much going on. Granted I haven't seen what may be going on inside the hangars, (the doors are always mostly closed) but as for the area around them, very little last time I looked.
 
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A little more:

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/...orld.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=gplus


"On the communication side, the aircraft will include equipment to send and receive encrypted communications to anywhere in the world.

"The presidential aircraft is one of the most visible symbols of the United States of America and the office of the president of the United States," said Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James in a statement. "The Boeing 747-8 is the only aircraft manufactured in the United States (that), when fully missionized, meets the necessary capabilities established to execute the presidential support mission."

Everything about the new planes will be focused on two things: Protecting the president while in the air, and keeping him or her in touch with global leaders.

"What Air Force One is really about is survivability and communications," said Richard Aboulafia, aerospace analyst for the Teal Group, outside Washington, D.C.

Survivability will include a variety of systems aboard the plane to ward off potential attacks.

These include shielding against an electromagnetic pulse, the burst of energy from a nuclear detonation that can disable electronics and communications, said Loren Thomson, military analyst for the Lexington Institute, outside Washington, D.C.

In addition, the aircraft probably will include more specific defense capabilities, including the ability to project a beam of infrared light to confuse any heat seeking missiles, said Hans Weber, president of aerospace analyst Tecop International Inc., in San Diego.

"There will be a sophisticated array of defense systems against missiles on board," he said.

The aircraft probably will have extensive fire-fighting equipment, including nitrogen in the fuel tanks to prevent fires in case a tank is hit, Weber said.

"It will have chaff to confuse radar, flares to distract heat seeking missiles, it will probably have a laser system, to prevent heat seeking systems from locking onto the aircraft," he said.

The aircraft will also be equipped to keep flying even in the event of major system failure, which is the point of having the four engines.

"Boeing builds redundancy into all controls on 747," Thomson said. "If it's Air Force One, it will have multiple redundancies, in hydraulics, electronics and other systems."
 
A little more:

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/...orld.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=gplus


"On the communication side, the aircraft will include equipment to send and receive encrypted communications to anywhere in the world.

"The presidential aircraft is one of the most visible symbols of the United States of America and the office of the president of the United States," said Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James in a statement. "The Boeing 747-8 is the only aircraft manufactured in the United States (that), when fully missionized, meets the necessary capabilities established to execute the presidential support mission."

Everything about the new planes will be focused on two things: Protecting the president while in the air, and keeping him or her in touch with global leaders.

"What Air Force One is really about is survivability and communications," said Richard Aboulafia, aerospace analyst for the Teal Group, outside Washington, D.C.

Survivability will include a variety of systems aboard the plane to ward off potential attacks.

These include shielding against an electromagnetic pulse, the burst of energy from a nuclear detonation that can disable electronics and communications, said Loren Thomson, military analyst for the Lexington Institute, outside Washington, D.C.

In addition, the aircraft probably will include more specific defense capabilities, including the ability to project a beam of infrared light to confuse any heat seeking missiles, said Hans Weber, president of aerospace analyst Tecop International Inc., in San Diego.

"There will be a sophisticated array of defense systems against missiles on board," he said.

The aircraft probably will have extensive fire-fighting equipment, including nitrogen in the fuel tanks to prevent fires in case a tank is hit, Weber said.

"It will have chaff to confuse radar, flares to distract heat seeking missiles, it will probably have a laser system, to prevent heat seeking systems from locking onto the aircraft," he said.

The aircraft will also be equipped to keep flying even in the event of major system failure, which is the point of having the four engines.

"Boeing builds redundancy into all controls on 747," Thomson said. "If it's Air Force One, it will have multiple redundancies, in hydraulics, electronics and other systems."
I appreciate your first response to my post but I have a feeling this one might be misplaced.
 
It was just a small update on the original subject of the thread. I am not getting the "misplaced" comment.
Sorry, for some reason it looked like the thread about KLGB. As a side note I read somewhere that the first aircraft might fly in 2018 and the entry to service will be 2023. I wholly understand the complications of introducing a new machine(?) with a lot of advanced tech aboard will require a period when it isn't utilized, but the fact that the timeline for delivery goes past the projected life of the aircraft in service causes me to raise an eyebrow.
 
That's the Gov for ya. Wait until (virtually) the last minute to replace something then scramble to keep the "obsolete" equipment in service until the replacement is ready.

The VC-25s, though, should last 'til 2023 easily.
 
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