The U.S. Air Force is repainting Air Force One and the rest of the executive airlift fleet in a bold red, white, and dark blue color scheme, replacing the light blue and white design that has adorned presidential aircraft for more than six decades. The first C-32 has already been painted and is expected to be delivered to the Air Force in the next few months.
An Air Force spokesperson confirmed the scope of the project:
"The Air Force is implementing a new paint scheme requirement (red, white and dark blue) for VC-25B as well as the additional executive airlift fleet, which will include the new 747-8i and four C-32 aircraft."
The C-32s will be painted during regularly scheduled maintenance, meaning the overhaul rolls into existing upkeep cycles rather than requiring standalone operations. The VC-25B, the Defense Department's designation for its next-generation Boeing 747 airliners, will carry the new colors as well.
This is a story about persistence. During his first term, President Trump unveiled a model airplane bearing his preferred color scheme for Air Force One: the deep red, white, and blue of the American flag, Breitbart reported. It was a deliberate departure from the Kennedy-era aesthetic, which dates back to the early 1960s.
Then Joe Biden canceled the redesign for the VC-25Bs, according to CBS News. No fanfare. No public explanation of why a sitting president felt compelled to undo a predecessor's cosmetic preference for the presidential fleet. Just a quiet reversal, the kind of reflexive undoing that defined much of the Biden era's approach to anything bearing Trump's fingerprints.
Now it's back. Last summer, Trump put it plainly:
"We're painting it red, white and blue like the American flag, which is incredible."
And so it is happening.
Critics will call this vanity. They always do when a president puts his stamp on something visible. But the Kennedy-era livery wasn't sacred scripture. It was a design choice made by one administration and inherited, without serious reconsideration, by every administration since. Six decades is a long time to coast on inertia and call it tradition.
Something is fitting about a paint scheme modeled on the American flag flying on the aircraft that represents American power abroad. The light blue design carried its own elegance. But the argument that presidential aircraft should look like the flag of the country they represent is not exactly radical.
The fact that Biden felt the need to cancel a paint job tells you more about the previous administration's priorities than it does about this one's. There was no policy consequence to the Kennedy-era scheme. No strategic downside. The cancellation was purely symbolic, an act of erasure for its own sake. That the current administration simply reinstated its vision and moved forward speaks to a different operating philosophy: do the thing you said you'd do.
The scope extends beyond Air Force One itself. The full executive airlift fleet is getting the treatment, including:
L3 Harris's facility in Greenville, Texas, is involved in upgrading the Air Force Two planes, though the precise relationship between the upgrades and the repainting effort remains unclear from available information. What is clear is that the first repainted C-32 is already done and headed for delivery.
The original design will always carry historical weight. The image of President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy descending the stairs of Air Force One at Houston International Airport on November 21, 1963, the day before Dallas, is seared into the American memory. That pale blue fuselage is part of the visual vocabulary of a generation's grief.
But honoring history doesn't require freezing it in place. Every era marks its moment. The Kennedy design reflected midcentury restraint and sophistication. A red, white, and blue scheme reflects something more direct: the flag, unadorned. Both are legitimate aesthetic choices. Only one has been treated as untouchable.
After sixty years, the executive fleet finally looks like the country it serves.
