Military authority and concerned reader David, wrote in with this possibly disturbing item from FlightGlobal..... [emphasis mine]The US Air Force yesterday took the first public step in the search for a replacement of the Boeing VC-25 Air Force One, the presidential aircraft fleet.
The USAF posted a request for information for market sources that can provide three widebody aircraft to replace two, 19-year-old VC-25s, which are converted Boeing 747-200s.
An analysis of alternatives performed in 2007, which identified the Airbus A380 as a candidate, found that it would be more cost-effective to buy new aircraft rather than modernize the VC-25s.
As a retired military guy myself, I would hate to see Air Force One being built in Europe or anywhere other than the US. Whatever Boeing has to do to retain that contract, it should do but, this is the predictable, logical conclusion when US companies, punished by over-regulation and hamstrung by onerous corporate taxes and labor costs, are forced to compete with foreign companies who have streamlined operations and government cooperation.
Manufacturing jobs are leaving the US in droves because it's just too expensive to do business here. We are becoming a nation of consumers rather than a nation of creators and builders.
The fraud, waste, and abuse that riddles every government manufacturing contract has got to stop and the whole process streamlined. Boeing is partly to blame for their own predicament in this area. It can control it's costs better. That said, the government should get out of the way and with minimal interference through regulations and taxation, allow American companies do what they do best, make things.
Hopefully Boeing will win the bidding process, because it would be quite embarrassing to have the Presidential fleet made in Europe.
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