DO YOU THINK THIS IS WASTEFUL SPENDING ????

Obama administration to spend $20 BILLION on helicopter program to replace his private fleet of 23 choppers.

The contract will buy 23 SIkorsky helicopters at an estimated cost of $400 million each – about the cost of the Air Force One 747 jet.

Duplicate choppers fly as decoys whenever a president takes off from the South Lawn; others are flown to Obama's travel destinations in advance. Just one company bid on the project, raising questions about whether the Navy got a fair price

Obama administration to spend $20 BILLION on helicopter program to replace his private fleet of 23 choppers.

The contract will buy 23 SIkorsky helicopters at an estimated cost of $400 million each – about the cost of the Air Force One 747 jet.

Duplicate choppers fly as decoys whenever a president takes off from the South Lawn; others are flown to Obama's travel destinations in advance. Just one company bid on the project, raising questions about whether the Navy got a fair price Originally Posted by Whirlaway

pssssssssssssssstttt

Obie didn't invent duplicate vehicles for Presidents ... he doesn't need 6 Suburbans either but he' s got em just like other Presidents did and will in the future ... its called security... study up!

Duplicate choppers fly as decoys whenever a president takes off from the South Lawn; others are flown to Obama's travel destinations in advance. Just one company bid on the project, raising questions about whether the Navy got a fair price Originally Posted by Whirlaway

Are you suggesting that they don't or shouldn't use duplicates, and eliminate any form of security?

Are you suggesting that they don't or shouldn't use duplicates, and eliminate any form of security? Originally Posted by JCM800

Air Force 1 & 2 ... one goes down or is a hangar being updated and there's another ready for the President to use for emergencies ... any President

FACT !

No, let's commission another couple of committees on Benghazi.

You leftie are so fucking dumb...in your fucked up world it is either one way or nothing............and yes 23 helicopters is a waste..........how about 15 ? Plenty of room for duplicates....and hey, how about competitive bidding????

15 helicopters isn't "eliminating any form of security"..........You are fucking idiot for thinking that downsizing is eliminating all form of security for the president.

Why are you lefties wasteful spenders of our tax dollars ???

Are you suggesting that they don't or shouldn't use duplicates, and eliminate any form of security? Originally Posted by JCM800

Are you suggesting that they don't or shouldn't use duplicates, and eliminate any form of security? Originally Posted by JCM800

Why was Valerie Jarett's (Odumbo's puppet-master) American security detail in Martha's Vineyard larger than Ambassador Steven's American security detail in Benghazi, 1-800-JCM-DATO: the lying, hypocritical, racist, cum-gobbling golem fucktard, HDDB, DEM's soiled breechclout?

Obama administration to spend $20 BILLION on helicopter program to replace his private fleet of 23 choppers.

The contract will buy 23 SIkorsky helicopters at an estimated cost of $400 million each – about the cost of the Air Force One 747 jet.

Duplicate choppers fly as decoys whenever a president takes off from the South Lawn; others are flown to Obama's travel destinations in advance. Just one company bid on the project, raising questions about whether the Navy got a fair price Originally Posted by Whirlaway

Not sure, the ones in use now were built in the 70's with all the new threats there will have to be updates in security.

You leftie are so fucking dumb...in your fucked up world it is either one way or nothing............and yes 23 helicopters is a waste..........how about 15 ? Plenty of room for duplicates....and hey, how about competitive bidding????

15 helicopters isn't "eliminating any form of security"..........You are fucking idiot for thinking that downsizing is eliminating all form of security for the president.

Why are you lefties wasteful spenders of our tax dollars ??? Originally Posted by Whirlaway

in the event of a national emergency that posed a threat to the leaders of this country, exactly how many choppers would you consider helpful should they (top Republicans too) need to ferry away from Washington and to safety ... 1 or 2 ?


you dumbass

You leftie are so fucking dumb...in your fucked up world it is either one way or nothing............and yes 23 helicopters is a waste..........how about 15 ? Plenty of room for duplicates....and hey, how about competitive bidding????

15 helicopters isn't "eliminating any form of security"..........You are fucking idiot for thinking that downsizing is eliminating all form of security for the president.

Why are you lefties wasteful spenders of our tax dollars ??? Originally Posted by Whirlaway

Cause they are all grandiose thinkers. Besides these idiots all have Bi-Polar Disorder anyway so don't expect any logic from them. Twenty Three Helicopters is over kill. Motherfuckers only need a few.


Jim

In 2003, the DoD issued a Request for Proposals (basically an open solicitation bid sent out to defense contractors when the government wants new gear) for 23 new helicopters to replace the entire existing fleet—Sea Kings and NightHawks alike—designated the VXX proposal. Only two groups responded: Sikorsky (working with GE, Northrop, and others), which proposed a derivative of the H-92 Superhawk and chopper transport of choice for many heads of state; and AgustaWestland (along with Bell and Lockheed), which put forth the VH-71 Kestrel an American version of AugustaWestland's very successful EH101 Merlin medium lift helicopter.
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By January 2005, the Navy decided to go with the VH-71, redesignating it the US101. This 18-seat (4 crew, 14 passengers) all-weather helicopter measures 64 feet long and 22 feet high with a 61-foot rotor diameter powered by three 2,520HP GE CT7-8E turboshafts. It was originally designed as a Combat Search and Rescue platform. The Navy awarded the initial $1.7 billion contract to AugustaWestland, pre-production design began, and that's where the trouble started.
The project was immediately beset by cost overruns, and by 2007—two years its kickoff—the development and retrofit costs alone had ballooned by 40 percent ($2.4 billion) over initial estimates. By 2008, building the entire fleet of 23 whirly-birds would cost a staggering $11.2 billion—$400 million per bird, about what an Air Force One 747 would run you—up from $4.2 billion just three years before.
This near-tripling of cost did not sit well with the newly elected Obama administration. Running on a platform of change and fiscal responsibility after nearly a decade of ongoing military incursions into the Middle East, the incoming administration viewed the bloated VXX program as a meaty means of demonstrating both campaign promises to a waiting American public.
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Despite the Navy in 2008 giving the go-ahead on the project (knowing full well about exorbitant cost), the VXX program ended in February 2009—after the price had risen again to a solid $13 billion—at the behest of President Obama himself. Instead, he directed that the remaining funds being applied towards upgrading the current Sea King/NightHawk fleet. Simply solution, right? Not quite, said the Congressional Research Service.
The CRS ran the numbers on the President's plan and discovered that axing the VH-71 and retrofitting the VH-3D would, in the long run, end up costing the US taxpayers somewhere in the range of $14 billion - $21 billion—not to mention the $3 billion they'd already blown on the Kestrel R&D so far. A savings bonanza, it was not. Plus any future fleet purchases wouldn't be affordable until at least 2024, by which point the Sea Kings would be nearly eligible for Social Security.
Instead, the CRS put forth a four-option proposal for moving forward with a variation of the existing Kestrel program: One, continue the Kestrel model as currently developed (the Increment I and II versions, think of them as progressive prototype revisions). This option would cost about $10 billion and have the choppers in the air by 2019. Two, build 23 units of just the Increment I Kestrel. That would cost only $6.4 billion and would have had them ready by 2012. Three, build just 19 Increment I's for $5.9 billion and also be ready by last year. Finally, spend just $1.4 billion to upgrade the existing Sea King fleet though that wouldn't actually satisfy any of the requirements for future presidential helicopters and would still need to be replaced in the coming decades.

You leftie are so fucking dumb...in your fucked up world it is either one way or nothing............and yes 23 helicopters is a waste..........how about 15 ? Plenty of room for duplicates....and hey, how about competitive bidding???? Originally Posted by Whirlaway

How do you know that 23 helicopters is a waste? ...What if 15 isn't enough?

Do you know what each copter is assigned to do on a daily basis?

Nope.

15 helicopters isn't "eliminating any form of security"..........You are fucking idiot for thinking that downsizing is eliminating all form of security for the president. Originally Posted by Whirlaway

So now you're an expert on security?

And you know how many helicopters are needed on a daily basis for the President?

Why was Valerie Jarett's (Odumbo's puppet-master) American security detail in Martha's Vineyard larger than Ambassador Steven's American security detail in Benghazi, 1-800-JCM-DATO: the lying, hypocritical, racist, cum-gobbling golem fucktard, HDDB, DEM's soiled breechclout? Originally Posted by I B Hankering

Wrong thread IB.

You're easily lost though.

Try one of the several other Benghazi threads currently going on in the Political Forum.

You're welcome.

Why does one president need 23 helicopters? Good question, said the Congressional Research Service in a report this month on the Navy’s program to buy the specially fitted VH-71 helicopters from Lockheed Martin Corp. The Navy doesn’t give reasons for needing more choppers in the inventory, the report says, adding: “It appears reasonable to ask whether an operational force of 19 new and more-capable helicopters couldn’t replace an operational force of 19 old and less-capable helicopters.”

Eisenhower had 13 ! Prior presidents have been operating with 19 helicopters; they probably could get by with less, but oh how federal bureaucrats love to waste money !

How do you know that 23 helicopters is a waste? ...What if 15 isn't enough?

Do you know what each copter is assigned to do on a daily basis?

Nope.

So now you're an expert on security?

And you know how many helicopters are needed on a daily basis for the President? Originally Posted by JCM800

Why does one president need 23 helicopters? Good question, said the Congressional Research Service in a report this month on the Navy’s program to buy the specially fitted VH-71 helicopters from Lockheed Martin Corp. The Navy doesn’t give reasons for needing more choppers in the inventory, the report says, adding: “It appears reasonable to ask whether an operational force of 19 new and more-capable helicopters couldn’t replace an operational force of 19 old and less-capable helicopters.”

Eisenhower had 13 ! Prior presidents have been operating with 19 helicopters; they probably could get by with less, but oh how federal bureaucrats love to waste money ! Originally Posted by Whirlaway

Why don't you check with the Pentagon who ordered them or the Marines who maintain them?