In
yesterday’s news, the media was all aflutter about Mr. Trump’s tweet calling
for the cancellation of a new Air Force One, (actually a small fleet of Boeing
747-8) one of which will have the call sign Air Force One when the President is
on board. The cost estimate he used was,
I think, $4 billion dollars for the project.
Of course, Boeing shot back and said THEY were only on contract for $170
million, the implication being Mr. Trump was full of stuffing.
I’ve spent
the last 20 years of my life dealing with the problems of translating
operational requirements into capability, and I can assure you Mr. Trump is far
closer to the actual cost than Boeing, and if I had to guess the $4 billion
estimate is at least $1 billion too low when all the acquisition professionals
get done with the project.
Let’s start
with some historical context. The
current fleet of two VC-25 Boeing 747s were ordered during the Reagan era, and
the first one flew as Air Force One in 1990.[i] Interestingly, the fact sheet doesn’t give a
cost for the aircraft as do most of the other fact sheets, but the E-4B lists
the cost of a similar command and control (less plush, less VIPish) aircraft at
$223 million in FY98 dollars (about $331 million today).
But what
about Boeing’s claim they are only on contract for $170 million dollars? I can’t
imagine they are correct or even truthful.
A run of the mill C-130 Hercules costs about $100 million when you
factor in things like spare parts, support equipment and training. The Boeing price sheet[ii]
shows the list price of a stripped down 747-8 is $378.5 million, so either the
US is getting one heck of a deal on this aircraft or the real costs are buried somewhere
else. Also, this is just the base cost –
it does not include all the cool modifications a President, his staff, and the
press people who fly along with him (or her) would need or want.
I can only
imagine the field day the White House staff of the current administration had
defining the best possible aircraft for the successor of President Obama. I’m just guessing here, but I bet they
thought it would be Ms. Clinton, so in their eyes, nothing was too good for the
Commander in Chief, and cost was only a cursory concern. You want rich leather unmarred by barb wire
scars? Absolutely, let me add that to
the tab. How about a Spa for those long
flights home after a weekend in Europe?
No problem.
Now I am not
saying there will be a gyro stabilized dance floor like I saw being put in a
Boeing 777 for some middle eastern customer, but there will certainly be sound
deadening additions, communication additions, a medical suite, rich carpeting
with fiber optic egress lighting, maybe an escape capsule like in the movie, and
a hundred things I can’t even think of.
Then you add
in the cost for all the new engineering data our government engineers will
want, and Boeing's position that all that data is proprietary so we will have to
pay them for the studies, the analysis, and the drawings so that Boeing contractors
can maintain the aircraft with the assistance of Air Force personnel.
Next, there
will be the cost for flight testing this new aircraft to make absolutely,
positively sure it flies just like a commercial Boeing 747 and water doesn’t
splash out of the spa. I’m guessing here,
but that would be at least a couple of hundred million dollars to upgrade the
test facilities and complete the flight testing at Edwards AFB.
Finally, we
have the upgrades to the maintenance complex at Andrews. These are brand new aircraft; they deserve
and demand the finest of maintenance facilities, so the hangers and offices of
the current Air Force One fleet will need pretty extensive overhaul.
As I believe Everett
Dirksen once said, “A billion here and a billion there, pretty soon you are
talking about some real money.”
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