Boeing's Losing Streak Continues as We Find Out It Will Take Them TEN YEARS to Build Air Force One
This segment aired in March of last year. Dante blogged it one day after the Justice Department opened an investigation into why parts from Boeing passenger jets were dropping down out of the sky like bird turds on your windshield. Parts that are, presumably, designed and built to stay attached to said jets. I mean, that's not too big an expectation for the poor, unsuspecting people with the misfortune to either be on those planes or underneath them on a planet with a positive gravity.
Ever since then, Boeing has been the Company You Love to Hate. For many, many good reasons. There are very few 80/20 issues in American life. But if there's one 95/5 issue, it is Boeing's fuckery. Here's just a Trader Joe's Sample Counter selection of bad news around this company. The original post:
Another:
Whistleblowers turning up dead:
Injustice being perpetrated:
And Boeing taking two heroic space travelers and nearly turning them into permanent satellites:
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As a reminder, if it were not for SpaceX getting the astronauts down, they'd still be on the ISS.
With all that to focus on, the public took our collective eye off yet another major scandal that's been happening right under our noses. In slow motion. Get a load of this boondoggle that has just reentered the national conversation.
By way of context, it's just been announced that the White House is accepting delivery of a $400 billion replacement for Air Force One from the nation of Qatar. This is very much a 50/50 issue. If you hate Trump, you see this as at best inappropriate, and at worst a bribe from a corrupt government and a violation of the Constitution. If you love Trump, it's a great deal. If you ARE Trump, you address it in Trump fashion. With a reference to Slammin' Sam Snead:
But if you're like me and this "controversy" occupies no bandwidth in your brain, your focus instead is on the reason WHY the United States needs a borrowed, second hand Air Force One, which is supposed to be one of the symbols of America's enduring status as a superpower. But since Boeing is involved, it's a humiliating scandal:
Source - [T]he real story here is that Boeing, the Department of Defense’s premier contractor, has been delayed years on a project vital to national security.
“We’re very disappointed that it’s taking Boeing so long to build a new Air Force One,” Trump said on Monday morning during a press conference. “You know, we have an Air Force One that’s 40 years old." …
The buried lede is that an elite American defense contractor can no longer deliver a presidential plane in a timely fashion. It reflects a deeper rot in the U.S. military-industrial complex — one that used to win world wars in less time than it now takes to build a new plane.
Boeing’s delivery of the new Air Force One fleet is a part of the VC-25B program (begun under the Obama administration), which “will replace the United States Air Force Presidential VC-25A fleet.” The government awarded Boeign the contract in 2018 with a target delivery date for 2024. But that date has since been pushed to 2027, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine.
As CNN previously reported, “Boeing’s $3.9 billion contract to replace the two Air Force One jets has become an expensive and embarrassing albatross. Boeing has reported losses totaling $2.5 billion already on the program … since it agreed to be responsible for what has become soaring cost overruns.”
By way of perspective, the jets currently being used to fly our nation's leadership around the globe and keep the Commander-in-Chief in constant contact with the command and control of our entire civil and military government personnel in times of crisis, was first flown by President Bush. The first Bush. Who was elected in 1988. And while they've of course been updated, they're still the air travel equivalent of you reading this on a Commodore 64.
So why hasn't it be replaced? Because Boeing got the contract. Seven years and $2.5 billion ago. With another two years and $1.4 billion still to go before we can expect delivery. You can hardly cal that "an expensive and embarrassing albatross." Because albatrosses can actually fly, no matter how expensive and embarrassing they may be.
We've seen some ridiculously drawn out, delayed, way over budget scams in the last few decades. Boston's Big Dig retired the trophy on that. As Conan O'Brien put it in October of 2004, "Any city that can get the rest of the country to spend $22 billion just to shave 15 minutes of their trip to the airport deserves to win the World Series." Denver's airport was another. (Probably to pay for the subterranean city filled with Lizard People underneath it.) The Chunnel from England to France was another.
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Hell, when I was living in Hanover, MA, they redid a highway overpass. Nothing special. Just you standard four lane section of Rte. 53 passing over Rte. 3 next to the mall. And it wasn't a tear-down; they were just doing it over. The infrastructure holding up remained. And it took 9 years. NINE. With overtime for the contractors and cops getting double time and a half for their traffic details. To put that in perspective, Appius Claudius Caecus began construction of the Apian Way from in 312 BC. It was initially 132 miles long, connecting Rome to Capua. And that took between two and three years. The official Massachusetts State Motto is, "Don't kill the job."
As a reminder, Air Force One is not a 132 mile long ancient road. It's a jet. Boeing is a company whose main reason to exist is to construct jets. Badly. But this isn't just any old jet. It wasn't commissioned to get Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce from Kansas City to her summer place in Newport without having remove their shoes at the TSA counter or get mobbed by fangirls.
This is the seat of America's power. It's supposed to be a symbol of our strength as a nation. It's supposed to fly over other nations and leave them in awe of our capabilities. The roar of its engines overhead should make mighty lions seek shelter in their dens. Instead, it's a national disgrace.
Finishing this job should be Boeing's first and last priority. But they're treating it like George RR Martin is treating The Winds of Winter. Except he's not getting nearly four billion of your tax dollars to procrastinate. Get mad about the freebie Qatar jet if you want. But all our anger needs to be directed at these donkeys.