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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