Decision to be made on whether spending $11B+ on 28 presidential helicopters is necessary

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Ozoned

Diamond Member
Mar 22, 2004
5,578
0
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Originally posted by: Skoorb
Link

a new fleet of 28 Marine One helicopters that will each cost more than the last Air Force One...the program is one more inheritance from the Bush administration, which began the effort after the Sept. 11 attacks generated concern about whether presidential helicopters from the 1970s were up to the challenge of terrorist threats.

Damn that is a ton of change for a single helicopter. Other than benefits like flying farther and faster (+ communications), I wonder if it would be cheaper to just crank out a bunch more replicas of what there is now and whenever he flies have at least a half dozen lookalikes going around as decoys!


I think, to protect our president & Given this breach of security, we better redesign and build new ones and use your plan.

Report: Pennsylvania Company Discovers Marine One Security Breach
Sensitive information about Marine One was reportedly found by Tiversa employees at an IP address in Tehran, Iran.

powered by BaynoteA Pennsylvania company that monitors peer-to-peer file-sharing networks discovered a potentially serious security breach involving President Obama's helicopter, Marine One, NBC affiliate WPXI in Pittsburgh reported.

Sensitive information about Marine One was reportedly found by Tiversa employees at an IP address in Tehran.

Tiversa CEO Bob Boback said a defense contractor in Bethesda, Md., had a file sharing program on one of their systems that contained highly sensitive blueprints for Marine One and financial information about the cost of the helicopter.

"We found a file containing entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One
," Boback said.

Boback said the issue most likely stemmed from someone downloading the file-sharing program without realizing the problems that could result.

"When downloading one of these file-sharing programs, you are effectively allowing others around the world to access your hard drive," Boback told WPXI.

"We found where this information came from. We know exactly what computer it came from. I'm sure that person is embarrassed and may even lose their job, but we know where it came from and we know where it went," Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, an adviser to Tiversa, told WPXI.

 

Pocatello

Diamond Member
Oct 11, 1999
9,754
2
76
I'm going to blame the Pentagon on the cost over-run. You have people who can't make up their minds, kids in a candy store mentality with no budget constraint.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
87,890
55,156
136
Does anyone else think it was funny that McCain was the one pressing Obama on this issue when you consider the amount of money he cost the US for aircraft he crashed?
 

MotF Bane

No Lifer
Dec 22, 2006
60,801
10
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Originally posted by: Nemesis 1
Originally posted by: BarneyFife
If it puts people to work in the US, I'm all for it.

Well this may sound stupid to you. But what if we took that Money . And the money were going to throw at A few Rich banks . Just so they can cut liquidity.

Hows About we put that money into an alter modern Monual Rail High speed electomag.
With 4 lanes at least on mains. And thousands of spurs were smaller units operate . Just like today But 10,OOOx more effficient. You would have differant spur usage and a network that would take years to build Employing millions . State Owned . Usage taxes. Brings invest back . Lets not forget what built this country. To many times the ans. ie right in front of you.

English and you don't get along well. Insanity and you, on the other hand...
 

BoomerD

No Lifer
Feb 26, 2006
66,173
14,603
146
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Does anyone else think it was funny that McCain was the one pressing Obama on this issue when you consider the amount of money he cost the US for aircraft he crashed?

ROFLMFAO!!

Not to mention the USS Forrestal disaster he allegedly caused.

:thumbsup:
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Does anyone else think it was funny that McCain was the one pressing Obama on this issue when you consider the amount of money he cost the US for aircraft he crashed?

Personally, I find it more amusing because McCain is typically an avid supporter of Lockheed Martin.


Weird thing about that article is they reference Bethesda, MD, which is the obvious home to Lockheed's corporate entity and they call it Marine One... which is odd, because people still refer to the current helo as Marine One but the new one would be the "future Marine One" as i it isn't in service yet.

The source article that I read on CNet seemed a little lacking in details other than the files existing somewhere in Iran on some P2P network.

EDIT:

I found something interesting about this supposed leak. I took a peek at CNN and they linked to a picture of a monitor showing the picture of the communication design.

http://www.wpxi.com/news/18818589/detail.html

The problem in that image... that's the MH-60S, which isn't the new presidential helicopter nor is it the current one.

EDIT 2:

That same news station's website has a video posted that goes into more detail on the situation ( http://www.wpxi.com/video/18824598/index.html ). If you watch the video, you can see a bit more of the documents in question and with the amount visible, you can clearly see "VH-60N", which means it is the helo currently used as Marine One (note, not the new one).