Air Force One, a specially modified Boeing 747 has been flying for 25 years now. Getting on in years, but still young compared to the B-52's and the KC 135's which are still flying after 50 years. The Air Force budgeted nearly $4 billion dollars to buy two new replacements. That's $2 billion per airplane. Boeing's catalog price for a brand new 747 is $387 million. President Trump did some jaw boning on the president of Boeing and came away with a small (nit noi) cost reduction.
And now we have a new deal. The Air Force will buy a couple of brand new 747's that were built for a Russian airline Transaero, now bankrupt. The check bounced, and two nice new 747's have been sitting on a back lot in Victor California. The Air Force has refused to say just how much it is paying for them. Let's hope it is no more than list price new, $387 million each.
Now comes the expensive part, jazzing up the planes with super fancy interiors, nice paint, and radio and comm gear that lets the president talk to every part of the military, internet, TV, and probably alien deductors. Plus anti missile warning systems, flare dispensers and laser jammers, plus God knows what other cost enhancers.
All this work is scheduled to last until 2024. That's seven highly profitable years for some contractor. Can you spell gold plated?
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