Air Force Diverts Missile Funds To Modify Qatari 747... Money is being taken from Sentinel ICBM program, which is over budget.

[WKTaylor]

I feel like I am hallucinating this... participating in a on-going nightmare by buffoons who have no limits... and believe in fairytales and the impossible.

Air Force Diverts Missile Funds To Modify Qatari 747 - AVweb

Money is being taken from Sentinel ICBM program, which is over budget.

avweb.com

 

[TugboatEng]

What specifically are your issues here? Your article says excess money is being utilized and there is no effect on the program.

On a side note my grandpa was a QA engineer for the Minuteman 3 program.

 

[3DDave]

From the article:

"That seems to be at odds with the Air Force’s decision in March to pause some aspects of the Sentinel program because of ballooning costs. "

Seems like Air Force Secretary Troy Meink is not interested in getting fired and will say what is necessary to keep his job, especially since he was just given the job a couple of months ago. He was nominated to his previous position by Trump as well.

Any overage should have been returned to the Treasury, not set aside as a slush fund, though I expect it wasn't a slush fund, but a gutting of the Sentinel program.

The Air Force will have to dig entirely new nuclear missile silos for the LGM-35A Sentinel, creating another complication for a troubled program that is already facing future cost and schedule overruns.

The Air Force originally hoped the existing silos that have housed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles could be adapted to launch Sentinel missiles, which would be more efficient than digging entirely new silos.

But a test project at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California showed that approach would be fraught with further problems and cause the program to run even further behind and over budget, the service said.

Sentinel nuclear missiles will need new silos, Air Force says

The Sentinel ICBM program is already alarmingly over budget, and trying to reuse 55-year-old Minuteman III silos would put it even further behind.

www.defensenews.com

There's no "extra" in that program.

I recall when diversion of funds in ways not set in law by Congress was a problem.

 

[IRstuff]

I recall when diversion of funds in ways not set in law by Congress was a problem.

That's still hypothetically true, I think

 

[TugboatEng]

Is this money congressionally appropriated or part of the Air Force's discretionary budget? Certainly, some of the funding was allocated by Congres but not all of it. The diversion was only 0.2% of the Sentinel cost so far.

 

[IRstuff]

Anything that is a contract, particularly for a major weapons system, is not discretionary

 

[TugboatEng]

Sure, there is money that is contractually obligated. Is there zero additional funding that may not be? Not even 0.2%?

 

[IRstuff]

Is there zero additional funding that may not be?

That. by definition, is discretionary, but that's not what's happening. The AF uses its discretionary and surpluses to cover overruns that it deems necessary.

 

[3DDave]

The trajectory is that it will take 1 to 2 years to rebuild the aircraft, which will leave as little as 1 year of use before it is transferred to the Trump "library."

There will also be deficiencies over the plane that is contracted for in exchange for a decrease in nuclear deterrence or a loss in some other area as funding is manipulated to complete this.

Recall the $6000 toilet seat? Wait until the bills for this come out.

 

[TugboatEng]

I absolutely understand how a toilet seat ends up costing $6000. I've always said that everybody's understanding of supply and demand is totally backwards. Demand lowers prices! A one off toilet seat that has to go through any type of regulatory approval is going to be exceedingly expensive. I'm shocked that anybody here would use this as an gotcha. Even procurement costs money. If it takes an office person 3-4 hours to find a specific toilet seat that's already $600-800 without even buying the seat.

Boeing isn't meeting their commitment to provide an aircraft that Trump ordered in his previous presidency. Maybe this is a necessary action to get Boeing to realize that they can be bypassed.

 

[3DDave]

This relieves pressure on the only company in the country who can deliver a replacement. No need to rush now.

Maybe the original plane would have been on schedule if over 1 million Americans hadn't died because Trump failed to keep the international borders closed to Covid.

I was referring to the lies about the $6000 toilet seat that are now going to become true.

 

[TugboatEng]

I don't understand. This is what Trump was working against. Not a face mask in sight.

I'm not making this political. I only asked if all of the funding for Sentinel was congressionally appropriated or if some of it was discretionary. Isn't that de-escalation?

 

[WKTaylor]

I absolutely understand how a toilet seat ends up costing $6000. I've always said that everybody's understanding of supply and demand is totally backwards. Demand lowers prices! A one off toilet seat that has to go through any type of regulatory approval is going to be exceedingly expensive. I'm shocked that anybody here would use this as an gotcha. Even procurement costs money. If it takes an office person 3-4 hours to find a specific toilet seat that's already $600-800 without even buying the seat.

Boeing isn't meeting their commitment to provide an aircraft that Trump ordered in his previous presidency. Maybe this is a necessary action to get Boeing to realize that they can be bypassed.

The USAF has spontaneously revised a NUMBER of elements of the new AF1 for modernization and capability... what a nightmare for Boeing. Anyone who believes that the gold plated Frankenstein Qatari-747 will be ready to fly the US president, the family members or even cabinet members, in the world threat environment, is smoking dope in a fairytale head-space.

NOT TO MENTION the 'spares logistics for a one-off AF1 wannabe aircraft will simply not exist'. With special systems/equipment/engines/etc... even the mechanics will have to be retrained/familiarized to maintain the the Frankenstein QAF1.

Also, the presidential flights always have a standby AF1 nearby for immediate/emergency evacuation.

Also... the presidential library thing is a total joke by TACO. What airfields can accommodate this goliath... much less sport the presidential library as an adjacent building or hangar. Or perhaps TACO wants the THE Q747 to be THE library... parked on a ramp... with a teeny tiny records/library section....and opulence galore.

OH and TACO hates the speckled trout 'blue, gold and white' paint scheme of the existing AF1s... he wants HIS power-dominant paint scheme... which is the inverse of the TRUMP-Inc 757 paint scheme [look on line].

 

[IRstuff]

That video is from Feb 2020, TACO didn't declare an emergency until 3 weeks afterwards.

 

[TugboatEng]

Right, he tried restricting travel from China, the source of the virus, but got called racist. This video was the response from the people that prevented him from restricting travel.

What is TACO by the way?

 

[Brian Malone]

I will suggest but it may futile, that the discussion stay centered on the non-political engineering interactions/ramifications and not meme-opinion barbs. The slope of that rabbit hole is slippery . . .

 

[TugboatEng]

Right, every time you get called on your delusions it's time to return to the core subject.

3DDave made the demonstrably false insinuation. Let's start by correcting that so we can move forward.

 

[Brian Malone]

 Tugboat - my suggestion was not directed toward only you, it is for all who are politicizing this discussion on funding for engineering-based endeavors. I am not sure if your comment on "delusions" is directed to me. I have not spoken of any politics.

Edit - my suggestion was my first post to this thread and now that I have looked at it from the start, it was political from the jump. You guys, have fun. . .

 

[3DDave]

Hardly false. The borders remained open, allowing more than 1 million people to die from Covid, disrupting the US economy.

Trump wanted to restrict only Chinese Nationals, not all travelers, on the basis that only Chinese people could possibly carry the Chinese virus. Creating a policy based on race is racist.

The core intrusion was from Americans returning through American international airports from Europe, none were quarantined and, instead, not only infected the workers at the airport who could potentially pass the illness to everyone passing through that airport, but those infected travelers were allowed to disperse to other flights and to cities across the USA, explosively increasing the number of infected.

Arrivals from Europe, some possibly sick, jam US airports amid virus screenings

Illinois officials blast Trump administration for bottleneck at O'Hare International Customs, which could have contributed to spread of disease

www.timesofisrael.com

Trump did that. Maybe, had he not eliminated the White House pandemic response team and tossed their plans or had he kept the Wuhan observation team on the job; who knows.

 

[System Protection]

Good grief.

There was no stopping Covid.