Monday, May 12, 2014

$20 Billion for new presidential helicopters?

Marine One is getting a little old.  There was a program to replace it about 10 years ago, but terrible cost overruns led to program cancellation.  The replacement was going to have electronic systems good enough to conduct a nuclear war from on board the chopper.  And they kept on gold plating it until the project sank.
   Well, they are at it again.  The new program will get a new design from Sikorsky in Connecticut.  For $20 billion overall, we get 23 gold plated presidential helicopters,  That's nearly $1 billion per aircraft.  That's totally rediculous.
   All we need for a presidential chopper is one of what ever the service is flying.  Give it a nice new paint job and maybe a couple of cushy seats in back.  Take the aircraft from an operational squadron, something that has been flown long enough to get a good feeling about it.  No fancy electronics.  If the president just has to communicate in flight let him use his cell phone.  And we don't need 23 of them,  two, a primary and a backup is plenty. 
   $20 billion for special design, special build gold plated choppers, when the country is as broke as it is, just doesn't make sense. 

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