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President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0said Monday that he\u2019s building a granite helipad on the White House lawn, insisting that the landing area is needed to accommodate new, more powerful presidential choppers.<\/p>\n
Confirmation of the project came as construction crews had already begun working on the helipad on the South Lawn, where the president had UFC build a temporary arena for\u00a0a cage fight\u00a0celebrating his 80th birthday. He said the project would be privately funded and estimated its cost at up to $6 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s got the seal of the White House on it in granite, in carved granite,\u201d Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. \u201cIt\u2019s really a beautiful thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Republican president did not offer details on how long the work would take. It is the latest major construction project he has overseen in an effort to increasingly mold the White House in his own image.<\/p>\n
Some of Trump\u2019s major White House construction projects have relied on public money, even when the president initially suggested otherwise. Still, Trump said Sikorsky Aircraft, a subsidiary of defense contracting giant Lockheed Martin, would be paying for the helipad.<\/p>\n
Asked about the cost of the project and a timeline for its completion, Lockheed Martin responded with a statement reading in part: \u201cThis specific contribution was made to the National Park Service\u201d and \u201cconducted in full accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2024, Sikorsky completed a new fleet of helicopters for use as Marine One, and President Joe Biden\u00a0took the first flight\u00a0aboard a modern VH-92A Patriot helicopter on his way to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago \u2014 the same day\u00a0the military announced\u00a0Sikorsky delivered the last of the 23 new aircraft.<\/p>\n
A Sikorsky spokesperson said Monday that the new helicopters deliver \u201cincreased performance and reduced maintenance costs and time.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Trump said the newer aircraft were more powerful than Vietnam War-era choppers that long had been used as Marine One, and the modern ones were too potent to land on the White House lawn without damaging the grass.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that the grass gets discolored \u2014 it gets ripped out,\u201d the president said.<\/p>\n
Indeed, the new helicopters have seen limited service because their exhaust vents aim heat downward, scorching the White House South Lawn.<\/p>\n
The Marines and Sikorsky have spent years trying to find a solution to the problem, which has meant that the new helicopters haven\u2019t been used at the White House. Trump recalled telling a group of gathered military generals that a White House helipad would solve those problems.<\/p>\n
The president said Sikorsky was building the helipad and paying the \u201cfull cost\u201d because they \u201cfelt a little bit guilty\u201d that the new fleet of helicopters was too powerful to land at the White House.<\/p>\n
Trump also said he told builders to \u201cdo a beauty\u201d and suggested using granite rather than simply laying concrete and painting it white.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re landing on granite, which is the strongest stone,\u201d the president said, noting that the completed landing pad could also be used for other events, like outdoor White House news conferences. He added that the helipad will allow officials to \u201cfinally retire 45-year-old helicopters\u201d that had been used as Marine One.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s other projects to remake the White House include\u00a0tearing up\u00a0part of the Rose Garden for a patio space reminiscent of his\u00a0Mar-a-Lago\u00a0estate in Florida and affixing partisan plaques to the wall of the colonnade for a\u00a0Presidential Walk of Fame.<\/p>\n
Trump also had crews\u00a0redo the bathroom\u00a0attached to the Lincoln Bedroom and renovate the Palm Room, place new\u00a0flagpoles\u00a0on the north and south lawns and\u00a0demolish the entire East Wing\u00a0for a\u00a0sprawling ballroom.<\/p>\n
While the term \u201cMarine One\u201d is applied to a variety of helicopter models that transport presidents, the most iconic and longest serving helicopter to take on the mission is the specially modified VH-3D Sea King helicopter that first entered service in 1978.<\/p>\n
In the early 2000s, President George W. Bush, a Republican, began an effort to modernize the helicopter fleet, but the program ran into cost overruns, leading it to be scrapped by President Barack Obama\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n
Obama, a Democrat, restarted the program, but new technical issues emerged, and it wasn\u2019t until May 2014 that the military finally awarded Sikorsky a contract to build the next presidential helicopter \u2014 the VH-92A Patriot, which were the aircraft delivered in 2024.<\/p>\n
A Marine Corps spokesman, Capt. Jacob M. Sugg, declined to comment on matters pertaining to the White House property. But he said the Marine One squadron currently consists of nine Sikorsky VH-3D Sea Kings that were first deployed in the 1970s, as well as six Sikorsky VH-60Ns deployed in the late 1980s and 10 of the newer VH-92A Patriots.<\/p>\n
Later Monday, Trump addressed a lunch in the Rose Garden patio space and detailed yet another White House construction project, this one to revamp the columns on the building\u2019s north side.<\/p>\n
Crews have erected scaffolding and Trump said, \u201cWe\u2019ve taken about 150 years of paint off of the columns,\u201d noting, \u201cIf you don\u2019t strip the paint off, it gets worse and worse and worse.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of love is being put into the White House,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t say who would be covering the cost of the column work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#Trump #building #helipad #carved #granite #White #House #seal #handle #presidential #choppers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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