Marine One to receive $6.1B upgrade

According to a Popular Science reporter, the President's helicopter, Marine One, is about to be totally revamped to the tune of $6.1B.



The article is a little confusing, it states in the first paragraph to the upgrades will begin as early as this summer. But the second paragraph states that the revamp chopper will go into service between 2009 and 2014.

The fact that the current administration feels this is necessary is little unnerving to me. It seems as though they want the ability for the president to make a quick departure directly from the White House (or wherever), into a mobile command center on par with Airforce One. Why the need for this "quick getaway". Does this amount of money spent on this not seem excessive?

[edit on 5/8/2006 by yadboy]

uhhhh the entire amount of money spent by my canadian government on defence is around what...10 billion.....

THATS 6 BILLION FOR ONE HELICOPTER...

does anyone find that a little wierd and disconcerning?

Yes it does seem a lot to be spending on a project like that, but i guess theres two ways of looking at it.

With the current state of debt and spending by the government, some would say that adding another $6b to that is outrageous. Marine One obviously works fine at the moment otherwise they would'nt use it for Bush. Some would say that $6b could be better else used elsewhere like New Orleans.

Then again, wastefull as that amount may seem to an outsider, these sort of things don't come cheap. There are cheaper ways of making sure the president is kept secure, but they are definatley going to comprimise his safety and running of the country, especially in times of emergency. Thats something that you just can't have no matter what people may think of the guy. At the end of the day, like it or not, Bush is running the country at the moment, and he needs to have his surroundings updated to a high standard in order for him to do that. Whilst a lot of people blame the government for a lot of the terrorist acts we see, sometimes there may be genuine attacks by terrorists that could see the need for the president to run things from his heli or plane. In the current climate, those attacks may even come in the form of something bigger than 9/11 God forbid. On that day, you'll hope the goverment has all it needs to do it's job well.

I'm actually suprised that he has'nt already got an oval office type set up already on his aircraft, in this day and age you'd have thought they'd have been prepared for if he was kept away from the WH for any length of time for whatever reason?

I'm sure if you added up how much politicians spend on entertaining and the likes, i'm sure it won't come too short of this amount anyway, so i'd rather it was spent on something that could benefit us.

It does seem a lot for one chopper though, when they refer to AF1 maybe they are talking about the whole fleet? I think i'm right in saying that AF1 is just the name given to any aircraft the pres is in (or marine one i think for the chopper, correct me if i'm wrong there). It does say "The new fleet will consist of 23 VH-71 aircraft". That to me indicates 23 aircraft to be updated, not one, although it's not very clear on that and does say $6b is going to spent on his helicopter.

CX.

Just look a few thread titles beneath this one.

You'll find another Thread about the same exact subject, only it predates yours.

It pays to read ahead of time.

Shattered OUT...

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies
Just look a few thread titles beneath this one.

You'll find another Thread about the same exact subject, only it predates yours.

It pays to read ahead of time.

Shattered OUT...

You might want to look again. If you're refering to Remake of Marine One cost 6.1 billion dollars!!!, my post went up nearly 6 hours earlier. It was moved from another forum. So,

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies

It does seem a lot for one chopper though, when they refer to AF1 maybe they are talking about the whole fleet? I think i'm right in saying that AF1 is just the name given to any aircraft the pres is in (or marine one i think for the chopper, correct me if i'm wrong there). It does say "The new fleet will consist of 23 VH-71 aircraft". That to me indicates 23 aircraft to be updated, not one, although it's not very clear on that and does say $6b is going to spent on his helicopter.

CX.

Actually, to be fair, the story does say that this is for 23 choppers, but you're right. The way it's written is a little confusing? But do we really need 23 of these?


[edit on 5/9/2006 by yadboy]

Yes. You will have 1-2 at least down for inspections, 1-2 down for maintenance, 2-3 fly with the one that he's in anywhere it goes, an unknown number to fly around other congress people/VIPs, etc. When you talk about Marine One, you're not talking about just a couple of helicopters. There is an entire squadron, and they pick from the ones in the squadron. So this is the replacement for the entire squadron, not just one or two helicopters.

I be damned.

It really is 5 hours earilier. O.o

Shattered OUT...

I dont like it when they use the words upgraded or revamped...its a totaly different and much newer chopper, and using those words makes it sound like there just gutting the existing fleet and redoing it and upgrading its features.....its pretty misleading.

...but nothing new here...I had a thread on this around 1 1/2 years ago...called Future Presidential Helo

But...anywho.....the new helicopter is needed, and is worth the price tag.