US may buy 747s once set for Russia to cut Air Force One costs

The potential deal is in keeping with Trump's knack for finding aircraft from unconventional sources

President Donald Trump’s administration may be poised to strike a peculiar deal for the next Air Force One planes: buying jumbo jets abandoned by a defunct Russian airline.

The US Air Force is in talks to purchase two 747-8 jetliners from Boeing that were originally bound for Transaero Airlines, once Russia’s second-largest airline, said a person briefed on the talks. The carrier never signed for the humpbacked passenger jets before it dissolved in late 2015, and the aircraft have been in storage since rolling out of Boeing’s factory near Seattle earlier that year.

While the Pentagon has also explored fresh-out-of-the-factory models that