Not true at all wrote:
random6 wrote:I heard about some of the same when Boeing built a lot of the International Space Station. There was lots of dual purpose work that was done under the ISS charge numbers....it was an engineering slush fund.
Having worked for Boeing, you claim is entirely false. The government has technical and accounting people on-site reviewing the spending process. Where costs go up is that people are not encouraged to work too fast or too hard. Still they work harder and faster than government employees.
Well will you look at that! Someone who actually has experience in the matter at hand.
Audits are taken very seriously when dealing with big dollar programs. 9/10 cost overruns occur because the government changes their requirements time and time again. This means that schedules slip and you often have lots of people who are waiting on others to change their design of make parts. Being a systems engineer is not a fun job IMO.
On another point, code monkeys like jamin who work in their pj's at home have no idea what the capabilities of AF1 are and how incredibly difficult it is to achieve them.
This isn't commercial bullshit. This aircraft needs to survive an EMP and so does every single electronic system on board. In addition to countermeasures it has an incredibly robust suite of communications links that are integrated into hundreds of ground sites, satellites, ships, and aircraft. It is not just a 747... it is a huge system that must work with other systems and it drives the design for many future systems. The risk for failure is huge. I mean, yuge.
I suspect Trump is playing the usual bait and switch where he says "oh I took it down from $4B to $2.9B!" He is just another politican at this point... taking credit for something already done.
On the chance that he is seriously ignorant and decides to forgo the scheduled update, don't be pissed when we are leapfrogged in tech and our POTUS become completely irrelevant if not SAM fodder during a crisis.