the current VC-25 is quoted at a unit cost of $325 million cp the commercial cost of around $ 80mm per commercial aircraft so the extra cost look as if it is in proportion
HH, the $325 million is what the government paid, the actual Boeing cost was more like $500 million each (I was pretty deeply involved, including a couple weeks of 18 hr. days). Now much of the overrun was due to some super dumbass management, but even when they announced the contract it was pretty well understood that best case would be a 'break even' business case. It takes a lot of engineering development to put things like dual APUs, aerial refueling, and defensive countermeasures on a commercial airplane.
And what information would the OEM require? They certainly wouldn't need to know any specifics.
Avionker, it's not always that simple. I was involved on the (cancelled) E-10 program. That big, powerful radar they wanted to mount would have been a direct line-of-sight to one engine's FADEC. So I started getting calls that went something like this:
Caller: How much HIRF can the FADEC handle? (HIRF - High Intensity Radiated Fields)
Me: We tested to 200 volts/meter continuous wave across the frequency range.
Caller: But what can it take?
Me: We tested to 200 volts/meter and it passed, we didn't test to failure. What's the threat?
Caller: Can't tell you the threat - that's classified. What threat can you take?
The worst part was I had some variation of that conversation (with different callers) about a dozen times
