Israeli designer behind hydrogen plane Kanye West pitched to Trump
Shabtai Hirshberg says he was taken by surprise when the rapper showed his idea to the US president, notes the aircraft is not actually currently practical
Kanye West made headlines Thursday with his rambling monologue in the Oval Office during a meeting with US President Donald Trump.
But one part in particular surprised Israeli industrial designer Shabtai Hirshberg: Holding out his phone, West showed Trump a picture of Hirshberg’s hydrogen-powered plane, which West thought should replace Air Force One.
“This right here is the iPlane 1,” he said. “This is what our president should be flying.”
Added West: “If he don’t look good, we don’t look good. This is our president. He has to be the freshest, the flyest” and have “the flyest planes.”
The conceptual aircraft was part of Hirshberg’s 2012 master’s thesis, and as he has since explained, he had no idea West even knew about the design — let alone that he would show it to the president.
"This is what our president should be flying in."
Kanye West reaches over the Oval Office desk to show realDonaldTrump a picture of a hydrogen plane.
The rapper says if Trump "don't look good, we don't look good".
Here's what else they talked about: https://t.co/GmCPDibntm pic.twitter.com/rHmRXQBTtx
— Sky News (@SkyNews) October 11, 2018
“No, it completely caught me by surprise. A good surprise, I would say — it’s always nice to see your designs being thought well for [sic],” Hirshberg told The Verge, before adding that the design is not practical as it uses “more advanced propulsion systems and better building materials” than would currently be achievable. Also, the plane is in fact not actually hydrogen-fueled.
The designer says that this is not the first time his design has received attention.
“A Saudi prince took very serious interest in the project with a willingness to invest,” he told the Mako news website. “We have reached terms for development investments in the millions, but it is currently frozen,” he said.
Hirshberg said he thought it was a joke when he was at a Jerusalem beer festival and received an email from a British journalist to ask about the iPlane 1.
“When you see an email with a link like that, you think it must be phishing,” he said. “But I opened the email and then I got another one. I consulted with friends and suddenly you do not believe it. Your project is presented to the president of the world’s largest superpower — it is certainly a good feeling.”
The Times of Israel Community.