Can someone explain why two these planes are more than a third of the total cost of the James Web Telescope?
What exactly do they need to do in order to protect one apparently irreplaceable man?
Don’t they fly with fighter jet escorts so the need for offensive weapons can’t be significant. Seriously, why do they cost so much?
We spend a lot on the military, including air force 1, and spend very little on science like JWT.
Silly humans. Don't even have anyone to fight but themselves.
The USA had a strong hand in blocking domestic aviation projects in countries that lost WWII.
I'm happy to see that a lot of countries are now slowly reaching viability of more diverse more or less modern jetliners. I wonder what disruption this will bring to the aviation market. It's clear that the duopoly of Boeing and Airbus is not a feasible approach to affordable aviation.
It will be even more important given that the EU wants to block more and more Russian imports. Which means that a block on titanium would further increase Airbus pricing.
And in those who were on the winning side too.. Likely in large part due to pressure from America, Canada killed the Avro Arrow and bought American Voodoos instead.
It's an expensive aircraft but everything is expensive now, even a new F-16 is as near as makes no difference the same cost (not including maintenance...)
I have sent my friends and families videos of Javelins and Switchblade videos marvelling at how amazing these pieces of tech are. But given the numbers that have supposedly been pouring into Ukraine and what is realistically happening it seems more like an unrealistic sales video than actual performance.
So you might want to rethink that. By all measures the war in Ukraine is fought with Artillery + reconnaissance drones right now. And the one with the better recon and artillery seems to be winning.
To your cost tradeoff. It actually seems more like the real tradeoff is cheap armour that your factory can churn out at a realistic pace, while being an uncomfortable powderkeg vs. really expensive equipment that you're too worried to use, because for every one that you use the other side can build 6.
cannot, objectively, be called a pretty good plane. No. At best, it can be considered a pretty good cash cow for Lockheed and its shareholders. A bottomless pit being endlessly re-filled with dollars in exchange of empty promises.
Where it did succeed, however, is in being an excellent Trojan Horse. With all the unattainable promises it made, it lured in a few European countries, that, once it was clear the costs would sky-rocket, where in too deep to pull out. And all the cash that was wasted in the process was not used to fund/develop a competitor.
Oh. And Lockheed got lots of valuable, free knowhow in the process, in exchange of construction promises that never materialized, because, you know, top-secret developments, leak risks of sensitive technologies, etc.. So win-win for them again.
Every time I've read about the F-35 getting killed its either in a situation where it's not supposed to be (it's not meant to be a dogfighter as per se, all the sensor fusion is for BVR) or really really old dogfights from when the jet was still having proper teething issues.
Similarly this weight limit seems to be resolved.
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/lukes-f-35s-receive-upgraded...
Within the last year or so at least two countries in Europe have ordered the F-35, competing aircraft do exist they just aren't good enough apparently.
And to add insult to injury, she needed to fly with Iberia to get there on time..
Are Lufthansa planes made in Germany?
Military-grade sensors, telecommunications equipment (the current aircraft have 87 telephones and 19 televisions each), additional exit points, a completely remade interior, including the President's private quarters, a kitchen, storage equipment, cold storage equipment to store enough food to serve hundreds of people (or a few dozen people for several days, there was an article about a $20M fridge a few years back), anti-nuclear shielding, reinforced glass, separate quarters for guests, senior staff, Secret Service and security personnel, a medical annex, which includes a fold-out operating table, emergency medical supplies, and a well-stocked pharmacy, the president's executive suite, a conference room, modified engines.
Air Force One does not have a fighter escort most of the time.
You may, of course, disagree about the requirements, but that really is a matter of risk tolerance, and preexisting policy.
The sticker on just the two planes, without modifications, would be $0.8 billion. So it's a $1.2 billion increase per plane.
> Don’t they fly with fighter jet escorts
Not usually
> What exactly do they need
This is classified (or more secret than that). But you can imagine it needs to be resilient to atmospheric nuclear blasts, have the ability to support tons of communication gear, internal security, radar jamming/chaff systems, infrared suppression, support for press operations. There are rumors about things like onboard surgery suites.
Why?
Zelensky seems to be doing OK in a helmet and flak jacket. I did check whether he has a presidential plane - the previous president was a notorious big spender - and the answer appears to be a leasing co. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_Air_Enterprise based at Boryspil airport southeast of Kyiv. "Temporarily closed" on google maps.
The same general reason, they are very complicated and need to work perfectly for many years with a lot of challenging constraints. First off they need 2 of them to create coin flip risk for attackers. Then they need to be adapted for mid air refueling so that they can stay airborne indefinitely in the event of nuclear war. Speaking of Nukes all the systems need to be hardened against EMP. The climate control system is probably equipped to filter out any biological or chemical agents. All or parts of the aircraft are probably armored to mitigate small arms fire. The planes keep a Nasa Apollo capsule in their belly so that the president can jettison from the plane in the event that is necessary, that's probably a pain in the a* to install. The whole aircraft is probably setup to mitigate surveillance attacks with things like windows that deliberate vibrate to thwart laser based audio eavesdropping. Then each plane needs to host a few dozen staff and reporters who accompany the president. Then also the 747's travel with cargo planes and/or Ospreys also made by boeing to transport the armored limos and/or helicopters. All or some of those support aircraft might be included in the price. Probably a bunch of other classified stuff I haven't thought of. Still outrageous but I can kinda see why it adds up to billions.
It does likely have countermeasures of some kind, but obviously I have no idea what kind.
Because they're complicated and custom, just like that telescope?