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USAF Seeks Air Force One Replacement
Tyketto writes "The United States Air Force has taken the first public step in the search for a replacement of the Boeing VC-25, also known as Air Force One, saying it is no longer cost effective to operate and modernize the two 19-year-old VC-25s, which are converted Boeing 747-200s. Airbus has already submitted data for the A380, and while Boeing has had the Air Force One contract for nearly 50 years, delays with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Boeing 747-8, as well as the KC-X Tanker competition, may see the USAF looking to Europe for its next presidential aircraft."
Why does the President need a bigger plane, anyway?
Why, so that we can appreciate the magnificence of the federal government of the USA, of course. It takes a 747 to contain a sufficient quantity of underlings and sycophants to enable the president to believe that he's capable of ruling the world.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Ah yes, the lead man for the worlds most successful mediocre band. I saw him try to sing backup vocals for Leonard Cohen. It was embarrassing. No range, his voice was cracking like crazy and he was flatting and sharping all over the place. He sells well, though, so he must have good marketers...
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I've heard rumors that many government procurement managers are really pissed off at Boeing, and are more than willing to consider alternatives.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Why doesn't the Government put out a new RFI for a new aircraft specially designed for the President? Make it one of Obama's "Get to work" plans? We'll spend about $30Billion to design the new aircraft, and it will be the future of all aircraft pushing every limit... it will give us new technologies, it will push innovation to the edge! It will travel at Mach 17! It will be able to get the president to any location in under 2 hours! Yea while we are at it, it will also deliver peace to the mid-east! Ok, I'm better now... put the order in for 2 747-8F's and call it a day.
Interesting. So "Executive One" is what a Cessna 172 carrying the president would use?
Perhaps they should simplify the whole affair and just use "Terrorist Target One" for whatever the president is in.
(I keed, I keed!)
Being European, I would strongly advice against buying an Airbus.
Trust me. You do not want to go French. You do not want to have to contact the French for support.
There's one thing that's worse, though: going half French, half German. You do not want to rely on something half built by French, who, due to them being French, won't speak anything but French, and half built by Germans, who due to being German will speak German, as well as English that really is as poor as Hollywood says it is when they make fun of the Germans.
It always comforts me to fly Boeing, when I know that the engineers could at least explain to each other what they were doing.
...fellow of darker persuasion, may I recommend the Soul Plane? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_Plane
When somebody is that valuable, it makes sense. For the big three, a mid-point would have been if all three(and their assistants), had taken the same private plane.
It think you mean, "When somebody thinks they are that valuable..." - to which I would reply, "Most likely they aren't." The egomaniacal people in these kinds of positions are leeches- they syphon the lifeblood of a company for their own personal gain, and they typically face no consequences if they screw things up (which they do quite often).
Why do you even have a queen? What the hell. "Let's spend massive quantities of government money to the institution that brainwashed us all into believing that God chose them to lead us and made us obey their cruel and arbitrary whims!"
Why don't you just keep the GOOD traditions, like everybody else?
Comment of the year
Why does the United States care about a third world, impoverished nation?
Because the current administration's strategy of "let's bomb them back into the Stone Age and then they won't be a threat to us any more" seems to have failed and might be causing more problems than it solves. Bombing corrupt dictatorships who have fallen out of favour into lawless non-states or marginally functional new states and destroying all their national infrastructures and employment for some reason doesn't seem to have reduced the number of disaffected angry young men and women who are desperate to vent their anger and are happy enough to listen to local radicals who think the USA is to blame.
Perhaps getting the president out to some of these places and getting him to talk and listen to these people might persuade a few not to dedicate their lives to killing as many Americans as possible, and maybe work with the USA instead. The last US plan doesn't seem to have won them over.