Another reason to fly experimental...

alexgeo

alexgeo

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AlexG
SkyDog58 said:
WTF do they need to carry 3000 meals for?
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You don’t expect the WH Staff and the Press Corp to eat MRE’s, do you?

Actually it’s in case of a prolonged airborne ops or other emergency deployment without access to provisioning.

Cheers

Cheers
 
X3 Skier said:
You don’t expect the WH Staff and the Press Corp to eat MRE’s, do you?

Actually it’s in case of a prolonged airborne ops or other emergency deployment without access to provisioning.

Cheers

Cheers
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So, what’s the math? How many days and how many people is that supposed to be for?

And what is the longest prolonged op that AF1 has ever been on?
 
When I was in the Navy, I was the Supply Corps officer on our ship, we were required to carry 3 months of food at all times. On our ship, a Cargo
Ship with 400 tons capacity of freezer space, that was never a problem... -Skip
 
Yeah, I’m sure the next President is going to order his team to get an RV-10 to haul him around in.
 
Why can't they just repair them? Most likely it just needs a new compressor, what would that cost? $5 million? Facetious sarcastical answer. Government waste.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
50/ ppl aboard, 3 meals/day, 20 day crisis = 3000
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I'm pretty sure that in less than 20 days, this airplane will have to land for fuel. I'm pretty sure they can pick up food too. Yeah sure, out break of world war, aerial refueling, blah, blah, blah. It's a dumb fantasy. If that kind of war breaks out, there is no way that airplane will survive 20 days.
 
Dav8or said:
I'm pretty sure that in less than 20 days, this airplane will have to land for fuel. I'm pretty sure they can pick up food too. Yeah sure, out break of world war, aerial refueling, blah, blah, blah. It's a dumb fantasy. If that kind of war breaks out, there is no way that airplane will survive 20 days.
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It has the capability for aerial refueling. I don't know the exact time period that it's supposed to be able to stay aloft for without landing. The engines can last more or less indefinitely so long as there's oil for the bearings and fuel to burn. They do consume oil, although I'm not sure what the oil consumption rate is on a CF6. I also don't know if they have those fitted with the ability to refill the oil sump during flight or not, I would assume they do.

Yeah, will it ever happen? Highly unlikely. Of course I'm a long time critic of AF1 being a 747 - the President should fly around in a Gulfstream like a normal rich person.
 
I'll be the dingleberry on this one.

The food MIGHT be there in case the plane goes down somewhere and they need emergency rations until rescue. Can't exactly have the President eating the press pool, can we?
 
Dav8or said:
I'm pretty sure that in less than 20 days, this airplane will have to land for fuel. I'm pretty sure they can pick up food too.
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I can imagine circumstances where they can arrange to land for various needs, but still want to plan for food being difficult to obtain. Or, they just don't want to have to worry about one more concern during a crisis. Gas n go.
 
Ravioli said:
I'll be the dingleberry on this one.

The food MIGHT be there in case the plane goes down somewhere and they need emergency rations until rescue. Can't exactly have the President eating the press pool, can we?
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Well you never know. It might get highjacked and Harrison Ford...sorry, The President, might need a day or two to rescue himself. It wouldn't do if all the players in that drama landed in a mal-nourished condition now would it.
 
Ravioli said:
I'll be the dingleberry on this one.

The food MIGHT be there in case the plane goes down somewhere and they need emergency rations until rescue. Can't exactly have the President eating the press pool, can we?
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I wouldn’t eat them. They’re way too bitter.
 
The problem is everyone gets to weigh in on the requirements, without any sense of fiscal constraint as it is not their money. Plus, a contractor has to do a study or two. Plus it is an Air Force program so it is automatically going to be exhorbitant. Then add the presidential aspect. I see it everyday at work everyday.
 
Something like a fridge should be as close to COTS as possible. Only the special avionics gear required for secure communication and for protecting the plane needs to be specialized and thus so expensive. It can and should be done for far less money.
 
SkyDog58 said:
Something like a fridge should be as close to COTS as possible. Only the special avionics gear required for secure communication and for protecting the plane needs to be specialized and thus so expensive. It can and should be done for far less money.
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How many fridges that can store 3,000 meals and are designed to be installed on an airplane do you suppose are sold each year?

But yeah, this sounds like a typical government fuster cluck to me.
 
JOhnH said:
How many fridges that can store 3,000 meals and are designed to be installed on an airplane do you suppose are sold each year?

But yeah, this sounds like a typical government fuster cluck to me.
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The way I read the article, the five units combined store 3,000 meals, not each unit individually.

I would imagine the actual cooling system used works just like any other refrigeration unit so commercially available parts should be easily adapted. Sure it will cost more than having a unit built to spec inside a restaurant for instance but it should only be in the tens of thousands of dollars not tens of millions.
 
JOhnH said:
How many fridges that can store 3,000 meals and are designed to be installed on an airplane do you suppose are sold each year?
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Reminds me of a big scandal about plastic caps on the ends of seats on the AWACS about twenty years ago. The government was paying ~$800 for the kind of plastic caps you could buy at Lowe's for $5 for a pack of four.

But Boeing had to re-create the tooling (the government hadn't paid to retain it), assign space on the factory floor, certify the material to safety and ecology standards, train the personnel, and perform the full FAA and military certifications. For something like two dozen caps...Air Force supply procedures didn't allow them to put in a big order, so all the startup and certification costs were spread over a very small production run.

Had a similar issue myself, towards the end of my Boeing career. We had a small electronic device we needed tested on an airplane. Some of our guys were working on the P-8 Poseidon project, and aimed us at the people operating the company test bed.

There was an amazing list of things they required...certification to ~17Gs (so it didn't come apart in a crash), remote switch so the pilots could turn it on and off (it didn't HAVE a switch, it was designed to operate until the 9V battery went dead), EMI compatibility testing with everything else in the cabin, etc. Plus the fact that the functions, etc. were classified, and none of the P-8 folks had the right clearances. Our government customer wasn't willing to brief them.

So...instead we crossed the ramp to the Boeing experimental hangar. Went to the guy in charge of Boeing's fleet of T-33s.

"What would it take to carry this in a T-Bird?"

He looked at it. "Gimme a tie-wrap....."

Experimental R&D category, of course.....

Ron Wanttaja
 
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