Is It Gold Plated, or Solid?

.... The Boeing Co., Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, has been awarded a $23,657,671 contract for engineering support services for VC-25A G12/G13 chillers, including prototype design, manufacture/procurement, installation, and the testing of one prototype, consisting of both Group A and Group B equipment. ....

its quite evident you never did Proto-type designing, not to mention any military contract work under military specification is the reason why you pointed this out.

And frankly,... if they listed the actual specification, would definitely help.

"you never did Proto-type designing, not to mention any military contract work under military specification"

Guess again!

Then why talk like you haven’t. It wasn’t a guess.. its the trump bashing that you do so well, that’s why.

You seem to have the fixation on Trump, not me.

Only a complete idiot would assume that trump had anything to do with this.

Never heard of the Golden Hammer Awards | Historic Richmond, I guess.

Back to my point, R&D is costly, and if you ever worked in R&D, is to get the people actually working on R&D their coffee. Otherwise, you would have known the costs.

"is to get the people actually working on R&D their coffee."

Insults will get you nowhere. But if it makes you happy......................................

Wasn’t an insult, only an observation.

The medical industry probably has them beat.

Hey a couple dozen Yeti coolers and an ice machine would have done the job....

Have you looked at those things?

That might exceed the budget!

Can you find one of these big enough for 911?

He really needs to chill out!

another observation

You're displaying passive aggressive tendencies... again

"Most of us are good at spotting overtly aggressive people. ... Passive-aggressiveness, as the word indicates, is a tendency to engage in indirect expression of hostility through acts such as subtle insults, sullen behavior, stubbornness, or a deliberate failure to accomplish required tasks."

In consideration of knowing what’s already out there in new tech for food storage etc, I’d like to know a bit about the need for prototyping cost that might be able to be cut from the cost. And, why try to fluff things with security clearance, as if to say they don’t already have the ppl that have the clearance, or, now we have to pull out the real expensive ppl out of the deep freeze

I agree, There isn’t enough information on what $24 million is actually buying. Are they putting some type of theory in to practice?

i understand that Air Force one needs to be self contained. But details would help.

I'd like to think that COTS* technology would have progressed to the point that, with a few hardening and reliability tweaks, something adequate (but more sophisticated then SE ice chests) could be had for 10% of that cost.

I worked on military satellites and other systems back when the MIL-SPEC-X35467-Rev J was the bible. But for an airplane???? No way.

I'm also relatively sure that no POTUS was involved in specing this system.

*Commercial off the shelf

These aren't your Big Box store refrigerators. These things have to store food for weeks for a lot of people.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thefiscaltimes.com/2018/01/25/New-Refrigerators-Air-Force-One-Will-Cost-Cool-24-Million%3famp

I can’t recall how long Airforce one can stay in the air with refueling, its phoenmally long time, and is probably classified.

And when your talking air craft weight and the elimination of weight, plays a huge part.

It doesn’t come cheap. Didn’t get a chance to look at your link to see what kind of details

Agreed. The other thing that can take a lot of work is providing a unit that uses a minimum of power. Weight and power were always the things that could bring costs up if you didn't watch out. I worked on a lot of that type of spec back in the day.

The weight and power consumption of the existing units is well known.

I am sure that technological advances in materials and efficiency have reduced both the power consumption and weight of newer units.

We had the same issue with satellites, in spades. I had a weight budget for the non-metallic materials I specified down to the weight of a drop of adhesive, mil of paint thickness, etc.

Certainly Wal Mart doesn't carry these in stock and I'm sure that if $24 million is budgeted, $24 million will be spent.

Exactly. I'm in commercial/industrial HVAC/R and it ain't what it used to be

here's more information. I heard its supposed to last 10 days. New York Times said its supposed to last weeks.

• No new technology is implemented, but...
• Storage is for 3,000 meals, with a space of 70 Cubic feet, seem rather small.

Some tidbits from the Times

In 1974 the value of reducing component weight in a commercial airliner was approximately $100,000 per pound in lifecycle cost/benefit.

Still, 23 million seems a bit steep.

I have read back in 80's??? that reducing (1) olive on a airliner meal saved the American Airlines, $40,000. Dammed if I found a reference of it.

But it's interesting that they're using the Pareto Principle that affects everyone where 80% of your costs go toward 20% of your line items. so,... 80% of 24 million the (2) refrigerators (Both presidential planes) are 4.8 Million(ish).... or 2.4 Million each. More inline, but still.

Maybe this also is applied here on something we don't know about the refrigeration.

But following the military standards,... the 80/20 rule is pretty gracious, I would think that percentages are a lot slimming.

Elsewhere I find the figures of 3000 meals stored in the fridge to be served to up to 70 crew and passengers. Presumably they allow themselves only 3 meals a day to stay up for a fortnight.

"I can’t recall how long Airforce one can stay in the air with refueling, its phoenmally long time, and is probably classified."

The answer is simple:

With mid-air refueling, Air Force one can, in theory, stay airborne indefinitely.

In practice, it can stay airborne "more than long enough."

The question is, has the U.S. Air Force been able to improve upon mid-air refuling and perfected mid-air RESUPPLY. If they've got that nailed down, then the needs of the passengers no longer form a limiting factor on the plane's endurance. If they can resupply in mid-air, then the plane only needs to land for maintenance.

Can pilots be midair resupplied? Those are known to occasionally experience sudden onset catastrophic failure. Additional time at altitude may increase this risk due to additional exposure to high energy radiation.

Or wait, pilot replacement is probably maintenance.

Okay, I know that relative bearing grease has never been midair resupplied and any plane no matter the size won't have any remaining on board after flying for more than 72 hours. That's probably maintenance, too, though.

If they have a helicarrier or a megazepplin they can dock with, so the "shut off the engines and crawl around the outside of the plane" maintenance can be done without touching the ground, then the crew swaps could also be handled, and the plane's endurance approaches 'infinite.'

"Can pilots be midair resupplied?"

You are, again, simply trying to divert the topic in a direction nobody but you wants it to go. And that is into your ridiculous world of word games that are meaningless.

Indefinite should satisfy anyone with a brain that the amount of time aloft is unknown. Undefined. Not known to those without the demonstrated need to know, and even then is subject to many variables.

To add to your insanity, how many pilots do you suppose are on board AF-1 at any time? Not just the pilot in command and co-pilot/ first officer, but qualified Air Force, and other personnel, who could pilot the aircraft if needed. Do you know?

If not, the question becomes one of simple, unnecessary word play.

Just accept indefinite as unknown and let it go!

"... divert the topic in a direction nobody but you wants it to go ..."

Lighten up Lyn. It's just a bit of fun. Apparently a couple other people felt inclined to add some to this line of the discussion. Oh, look. Even you couldn't resist.

Everyone realizes it isn't serious. Why are you acting so butthurt?

Did you really think everyone was going to respond in unison with a collective 'Harrumph' and then write Congress about giving Trump the boot? Sorry it didn't live up to your expectations, however my tongue in cheek remark is not what foiled your scheme.

Lighten up. Perhaps cut some of the briars and pith out of your diet. Eschew the divisive overtones. Try smiling.

Again you are disgusting incorrect, not to mention annoying!

At no time was any POTUS mentioned by me. I did NOT bring politics into this discussion so take your lies elsewhere!

'...disgusting incorrect..."

.

Just trying to help you out. Whether or not you can accept the correction and learn from it is completely in your court.

'Disgusting' looks like it was intended to modify 'incorrect' in your sentence. As such the adverbial form is required. You should have written 'disgustingly', as in 'disgustingly incorrect. That way your sentence could be, at least grammatically correct.

You may choose to distort this offered correction into some negative trait you wish to project onto my person, but that doesn't change the validity of the correction nor any reality about my person.

Do with it what you will.

Just accept indefinite as unknown and let it go!

i think we found the reason for the cost of these chillers..

the bid and contract going out for a chiller to store food for an indefinite amount of time.

They do it in the movies all the time....

Anyways, who needs a pilot... I got this...

No not indiffitnely.... I found it was 10 days, unless, they become canibals after the food runs out.

I said, "in theory, indefinitely."

You need to remember the words of a great(ish) philosopher(kinda):

"In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is."

There are many unknown variables to AF-1's flight endurance: frequency of mid-air refulings, quantity and type of food stored on board, headcount of passengers & crew.

If the plane has, for example, 6 pilots (3 shifts of pilot/co-pilot pairings), the CinC, and two aides (again, 3 shifts of monitoring communications, without putting additional strain on the piloting staff), and every spare cubic foot/pound of capacity were filled with MRE's, they should be able to last significantly longer than 10 days.

Words to live by,... sometimes...

If a situation happens where AF1 must stay aloft for more than three days then very little else will matter at all on the fourth day.

That's a very good, but sobering, point.

Staying aloft for even a full day would have to mean that the continental US was under heavy attack.

Consider what happened on 9/11. My wife was stuck in Estes Park, CO. for two extra days because all aircraft, except military were grounded. She was actually headed to Denver to catch her plane when she heard, so she went back. What a mess that was! Not for her so much as what's not to like about a few extra days in Estes Park? I was very anxious for awhile because at that point nobody knew for sure what was happening! (The movie Red Dawn comes to mind)

With all our military bases all over the world, I feel that staying in the air for more than a few days would be counter productive. Of course, all options must be kept available I know. (Now the movie On The Beach comes to mind)

Do you recall who the philosopher was/is?

While it's a catchy statement, I would argue that in theory there IS a difference between theory and practice.

The philosopher was the great Yogi Bera (No relation to Yogi Bear). He also had a few other sayings:

"Ninety percent of the job [baseball] is mental, the other half is physical."

"You can observe a lot by looking."

"If people don't want to come to the ball park, nothing's going to stop them."

"Nobody goes there [a famous restaurant] anymore, it's too crowded."

"I never said half the things I said." (In response to a number of quotes misattributed to him.)

And I have to include a rather famous exchange:

• Bystander: "Excuse me, do you know the time?"
• Yogi: "You mean now?"

Ahhh that puts it into perspective. Thanks

Yogi (real one, not the cartoon) was a wonderful character.

I like his (yogi Berra) pointers on how to catch a knuckle ball...

”you wait till it stops rolling, and pick it up”

Earlier than Yogi Berra, I believe

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jan_L._A._van_de_Snepscheut

It would be interesting to know how long the engines can be continuously run in flight...

do they have a piece of tape to put on to block out when the ‘Check Engine’ light comes on.

Same as the article; no real details

Air force Ones refrigerators are due to be replaced. After an expected life of 8000 flights, the cost per meal refrigerated will only be one US dollar.

Sounds like a bargain at twice the price.

Would you spend ~$66,000 on household refrigerators over the years of your life?

..No.. no and no

I'm trying to figure out how to refrigerate the contents of a room with the guts of an old fridge.

(think modern root cellar/pantry)

Haven't done a thing about it.. just thinking.

Think just a little harder, and compare the size of a fridge and the size of a room, then the size of the eqmt for the fridge and imagine what size might be needed for a room

Would you spend ~$66,000 in an environment that's when someone else is always paying?

This is pretty outrageous even by US military standards. It is a disfraceful waste of taxpayers money. And sole source??? Ye gods. That went out with the ark......

Boeing claim Bombardier get state subsidy. What would you call this. Its nonsense. Back door subsidy. Wait till the aerospace people in canada and europe get their hands on this.

This might be worthy of a golden fleece award, it might not. The critical unknown is in this sentence fragment "The units and associated aircraft structural modifications..." The structural integrity of these unique, special planes are nothing to sneeze at.

There is also the common military budget recoup scenario, too. Remember that somebody that rhymes with "harump" cancelled the replacement of new AF1 planes for retrofitting a pair of unsold 747s.

I say, there's no reason a replacement can't fit in the existing space. After all, how much room can two weeks worth of Big Macs and fish sandwiches take up? Everybody can eat what the boss eats, just much less. No shakes, just water for them.

Its custom made,... even with that said,... $25 million is over priced. What may be happening, Boeing is making up for cuts the government made in other places.

Let's not discount the possibility that this design may be sold to the airlines at some point in the future for big bucks....so maybe not so expensive in the long run after all....

Do you know of any airlines who need to feed 70 people for 14 days, without landing?

Most airlines don't feed people anymore.

Yes it's expensive, and the prospect of any commercialization is, shall we say, astronomical, just like the cost!

Well it could be scaled down for commercial airline use, or possibly the luxury yacht industry....who knows

Maybe, who knows?

14 days in the air? If you only have 14 hours theres less chance that you will do something stupid in the first place.

Typical military solution.

But this is a backdoor subsidy.

I wonder if the refrigerator also recycled and purified water?...

Will the gvmt/tax payers make back the money on the sale?

From the contract link you posted (highlighting mine):

"ASRC Communications Ltd., Beltsville, Maryland, has been awarded a $395,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract"

Almost 1/2 a billion$, for that kind of - excuse me - blank check, and your worried about a measly $24M for something definitive?

What about a two year old company, WITH TWO EMPLOYEES, getting an open ended, no audit contract for $300,000,000.00 USD to "restore power to Puerto Rico?

Coincidently, the the owner "just happened" to be from a small town in Montana and was a friend of the new administration's Sec. of The Interior?

$24 Billion is chicken feed in the new world order.

That's already nixed

that never became reality. but if your looking for realities that did happen, look no farther to CGI Federal with the design of the website the was multiple times over budget and ended up getting kick off and replaced (And still got paid), who were friends of the first lady, no-bid contract at a cost overrun of $634 million by a Canadian company and not only actually had quite a bit of failures in government contract, was based out of Canada.

It happened. Much of Puerto Rico still has no electric power.

FALSE, the company's name that lyn was referring to was Whitefish Energy,

Puerto Rico Cancels Whitefish Energy Contract to Rebuild Power Lines

on the other hand where Federal CGI actually did 'HAPPENED'.

But your were half right,... Pueto Rico still has no electric power, as well as lack of food that's rotting in the warehouse, sacrificing peoples safety due to liberal politics.

we've seen it before, even recently,.... haven't we.

Wow, how could it be false if you both remember the name of the company and locate a published article on their dismissal.

I know, we must be just having another ill defined pronoun dispute. Still how did you know what my "it" referred to if it was false or unknown?

I know, we must be just having another ill defined pronoun dispute. Still how did you know what my "it" referred to if it was false or unknown?

Really?, if that's your defense... then you have a weak platform to begin with,... why bother?

So you admit that you are attacking me.

Ah yes, the ad hominem response is so often the last desperate logical fallacy attempted in a losing argument.

Oops, I guess I just became guilty of this, too.

If you HAD JUST QUIT after CGI Federal, you MIGHT have some credibility!

As it is, you are just making things up to try in vain to defend the indefensible!

GIVE IT UP!

You say, "that never became reality."

Maybe not in your world.

In the real world, $83 million and counting seems like reality.

"Last week, Whitefish halted its work efforts, citing $83 million it says the island had not paid. It has now received a payment that it says shows the island has a good faith intent to pay."

Whitefish Energy resumes work in Puerto Rico after 'good faith ...

Regarding your FALSE statement in #43 you aren't even half right, but you are half something.

Remember, opinions OK. Your facts can't be alternative, they must be real!

What makes it difficult, but not a 24 million dollar worth of difficulty, what appears to be a mundane insignificant part but plays a huge part, is the actual fit of the refrigerator in a circular cabin. Now I'm would 'guess' it will be put on the outside wall for its shielding affect. but at this point,... who knows.

I don't agree that taking a COTS cooling system and "adapting" it for use is, quite frankly, preposterous," but I won't dispute some of what you say.

Having worked in very large rooms totally enclosed in copper mesh, with loudspeakers playing white noise into every AC register or other openings to totally mask conversations, I can tell you that hardening a piece of electronics against intrusion is not a difficult task.

I have also been involved in hardening satellites against EMP bursts and other types of compromise and that's not impossible, either.

Your point about overhead, and other, costs is well taken and it isn't cheap.

Having worked in very large rooms totally enclosed in copper mesh, ...

You still have a limited weight issue for hardening aircraft.

The reference to the room was only used to illustrate the level of security that was imposed on the rooms used to design the equipment, in this case satellites.

You must have missed #17 where I acknowledged that weight is a sensitive issue, more so in satellites, but in any aircraft.

got it.

Since this is only an upgrade to the (2) Existing Air Force one, and since it's going to be soon replaced with a new one, the question should be asked, Why the upgrade at all?

Especially with the costs.... and what are they doing with the newer version of Air Force One after Boeing resubmitting it's proposal at a lower cost when it was questioned.

Good questions.

I do not have a clue, but I hope someone does.

Harump. Where did you hear that AF1 was going to be replaced with new planes?

They are still new, but not what was originally intended..., the question remains, what type of refrigerators will be going onto the new AF1.

The costs being thrown around were slightly confusing and then phenomenally high.

"The Pentagon announced in January that Boeing had won the contract to replace the current Air Force One planes. The initial contract was worth just $25.8 million, but the Air Force planned on spending as much as $1.65 billion on the project, according to Reuters.

In a statement, Boeing said it was under a $170 million contract to work on Air Force One. "

Hopefully the Air Force are not spending their budget on the premise of 'either spend it or lose it' mentality. That is where contractors take advantage of without oversight.