Analyst Misses The Point

The Washington Post tries hard to see both sides of the VH-71 White House helicopter issue. Is it a dangerous gamble to delay the over-budget, over-schedule defense program? Or was it an over-engineered, gold-plated obscenity? I'm leaning toward the latter, but Loren Thompson prefers the former.

But Loren Thompson, a defense consultant for the Lexington Institute in Virginia, disagrees. The current presidential helicopter is "dangerously outdated," he said. Thompson's clients include Lockheed Martin Corp, the prime contractor on the new helicopters, though he is not working for the company on the program.

Of course we have to trust Thompson to be a professional and not shill for Lockheed Martin. But what could cause a simple program - bringing in commercial helos and just adding a few mods - to come to a point where each helo cost more than Air Force One?

Cost overruns and delays have plagued Lockheed's helicopter program due partly to aggressive plans by the Bush administration to incorporate anti-missile defenses, communications equipment, hardened hulls and other advanced capabilities on the aircraft following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
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The Navy - which is in charge of overseeing the helicopter program - told Congress in January that the program's price tag had soared. That notification triggered a formal process mandating the program be re-certified as a national security requirement by senior Pentagon leadership.

The Navy waited nearly a year before formally disclosing the information to lawmakers as it sought to find ways to keep the program within budget. Those efforts failed.

Yes, I suppose those could be reasons why the program ballooned from $6.8 billion to nearly $12 billion. But here's the catch - Loren - it may be true that the requirement exists for a special White House helicopter exists, but that doesn't justify gross program mismanagement. You don't win an argument for continuing a broken program and spending billions on "well, we have to have it." I think the Marines can keep up the maintenance on the current Marine Force One in the meantime.

UPDATE: A delusional VP at Lockheed Martin defends his program.

Your readers also should understand that there are significant differences between a helicopter and a fixed-wing aircraft such as Air Force One. One of the challenges that we have worked together to overcome is ensuring that the same capabilities available on Air Force One are at the president's disposal on Marine One, meaning we must fit complex electronic systems and other gear within a fraction of the space available on the much larger Boeing 747. In today's challenging global security environment, each aircraft must be a fully capable command and control node whenever the president is aboard.

As James notes in the comments, no, Jeffrey, we really don't need this capability.

Comments

[James]

Actually, the helicopter project is a nice encapsulation of the Bush regime's notion of an "imperial presidency." The Imperial President, you see, is irreplaceable. If he is out of contact, even for the brief period his helicopter is flying between the White House and Dulles, the world will end. Thus, the helicopters that previous presidents found perfectly adequate while confronting the Soviet Union and its thousands of nuclear missiles are totally inadequate during the age of cave-dwelling bomb-throwers.

Every helicopter in the Pentagon's inventory has missile defenses and military radios that can reach out and talk to the DC command center. But that's not enough for the Imperial President. The world needs to hear his cooing voice at all times, like a baby needs its mother. If anything happens to the Imperial President, it's quite possible that it will mean the end of America, for the Imperial President is America's beating heart. America is, under the "Leader Principle," an expression of the Leader's will.

So, you see, the VH-71 is more important than any other procurement program. After all, without our President, we have no America to defend.

[Kilo]

Does Bush deciding to incorporate missile countermeasures in response to 9/11 suggest that your Air Force One Chopper didn't already have these ?

Killing the President of the US with a shoulder-launched missile would make those boxcutters look expensive on a bang-for-buck analysis