Originally Posted by
TacomaSailor
The cost of new Air Force One planes may be a little more complex and difficult to manage than Mr Trump thinks.
The Puget Sound business press has a lot of information and dialogue about the cost of the new plane or planes. Most of the commenters, many of whom claim to be engineers or designers with Boeing, claim the following:
- Boeing sells a green 747-800i to Air Force at lowest available commercial price (a standard clause in most federal contracts)
- AF, Secret Service, NSA, CIA...??? specify the equipment that must be installed
- Boeing engineers work with equipment engineers to determine what mods must be done to basic airframe
- ... a circular process follows of design, engineer, modify,...etc
- Boeing provides technical skills at a fixed cost+ basis
- equipment providers contract with AF for cost of equipment
- Boeing works as an integrator with fixed cost for administration and real estate
Bottom Line - Boeing has very little control of final cost. They only control a few items:
1) Original airframe
2) Cost of their technical skill
3) Cost of overhead and real estate
The other big cost driver is the rapid change in technology: computer, communications, radar, weapons. At some point the installed technology must be frozen. But, the added cost is the installed flexibility to adapt to upcoming changes. Including that flexibility is initially costly but in the long run very cost effective.
I am not sure about the information. But, I did manage many large Federal IT projects that worked in a very similar fashion. I was the overall integrator but I was working with off the shelf hardware and software that the Feds acquired. I then worked with technical staff, some mine, some the Feds, some provided by 3rd party software vendors, to make it all work together.
And... the big unknowns were change orders a year or two into the contract. New hardware, new versions of software, new "required" functionality. Those were all enormous cost escalators and were outside the control of the original hardware and software vendors and me the integrator.
I worked on a Federal project (tightly tied to commercial aviation) that continued for more than five years at 10x the original cost and NEVER did meet any of the original requirements. Eventually technology had moved so far ahead of the project that it was abandoned at a cost of Billions of $$ with little useful result.
You nailed it in detail. Of course, Mr Trump will change all this. Aren't we lucky?