..the Boeing 747-8, rather unsurprisingly. Boeing will build three, and they will undergo a five-year test programme from 2018 onwards. So it may not enter into service before the 45th or 46th POTUS is in office.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/28/7930857/the-next-air-force-one-will-be-a-boeing-747-8

5 MORE years of testing for an in service aircraft design?

Gee, I hope they can squeeze a couple of coffee breaks in.

And you wonder why military procurement is broken? Seriously, everyone wants to go to OCP, and we are still waiting on that after 3 years. I'm holding off on my new uniforms, because I know they won't be issuing them to us, we'll get to buy them since it costs them too much to issue them.

Could be worse, you could be an English "Donkey Whalloper" (Cavalry, specifically, Officer)

I have a friend who is a private contractor for the Pentagon doing some kind of software programming for inventory.

He has been working on the same project for as long as I can remember with the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force.

He has a top security clearance: when he travels outside of the country, he is on a Pentagon private jet and he is driven around by armed bodyguards in armored SUV convoys.

Every so often, 4-5 months, I ask him: "so when is the project going to be completed and when it will go live?"

He answers in a couple of months.

He has been giving me that same answer for almost 10 years.

In the meantime he is making millions, and I mean millions, like in the 100 of millions.

Not bad considering that he is the owner of the software company and there are only 5 employees in his company:

he and 2 software programmers and 2 technicians.

He is only 43 years old and he drives a McLaren and he also owns an Aston Martin, a Lamborghini, A Ferrari, and he is now as we speak in Kentucky at the Corvette Z06 plant watching his new car being build.

He also owns 3 beach houses: one in South Beach, one in Southern California, one in Long Island.

All procured from his earnings fleeching the Pentagon.

Yep, that sounds about right. I encountered those types quite a bit in my days in- but then again, when there's no competition for a contract...

So is my friend the one dragging out the completion of the contract so the longer he takes, the more $ he gets (does it work that way?) or is the Pentagon slow at wanting things done or both?

It depends on what kind of contract he has. Cost plus, fixed price (obviously not), whatever.
Something tells me they don't give out contracts like that very often any more, at least not for that much money. He got it when, back post-9/11, pre-OIF? The money tap was flowing freely then.

I'm just surprised with sequestration and all that no one clobbered his.



The Jedi Master

just another reason why our government system is broken...

Right... but... we DON'T know if what he provides... is or is not worth the money paid. It may well be a game-changer. If it is... and there is no one else providing anything like it, then what's the problem?

Look, few criticise the purchase of MRAP's or jets and UCAV's... but sifting through sensor fusion and the giant databases on intel, to provide mission planners what they REALLY need... isn't that worth the price of a single fighter jet? Or maybe its a fancy super system able to track really high threat terrorists in new ways or better ways...

Look, I'm no fan of corruption, especially on the taxpayer's dime. I think it should be punishable by guillotine, frankly. I'm just saying that some guy with a big contract that's highly profitable, isn't nessisarily corrupt.


Getting back to AF1 though, this isn't just buying a 747 "off the rack". The current generation AF1, the first 747 version, was dramatically different from the normal civie aircraft. Sure, same wings airframe and so on... but the rooms, bulkheads, the wiring... it had more than doubled the wiring from a normal 747 even when brand new. Tons of new systems were put on it. Fancy communications systems for everything like talking to CNN, to video conferencing with the Pentagon...

It takes time to integrate all that into an aircraft, so that its not overweight, doesn't catch fire (look into Kapton wire!), can handle the loads.

Now consider all the tech advancements since 1990 they'll want to stuff into the next generation of AF1... you can't do that overnight, you can't do that on the cheap, and you'll need many aerospace professionals to do the work. And they expect to be paid more than the guy asking "you wanna upsize that?"

Rick,

More often than not, it is a promise to be a game changer, it doesn't actually deliver.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/du...stem-90796.html

DCGS has been promised to be a game changers, but I'll be honest, I know 35 series have told me they use Google Earth more often than not.