Dang.

The flight manual for new Air Force One cost $84 million

Airplanes, like cars, have user manuals. That includes the Boeing VC-25B, also known as the future Air Force One. That is not news.

What is unusual is that the manuals for the future U.S. presidential jet are going to cost taxpayers $84 million. You read that right.

The Drive reported that Boeing was just awarded an $84 million by the U.S. Air Force to “modify commercial manuals, update with VC-25B-specific information and deliver integrated manuals for the VC-25B system.” That’s a slightly convoluted way of saying that Boeing and its subcontrators will take the existing manuals for the Boeing 747-8, and adapt them for its military version, the VC-25B.

A report from the Pentagon last year pegged the total cost of the VC-25B program at $5.2 billion for the two aircraft, including all the associated expenses. It’s not clear whether that includes those manuals. The figures are staggering, especially compared with the price of a 747-8 off the Boeing assembly line: according to the company’s list prices, two 747-8s would cost $836.8 million And the VC-25Bs weren’t even bought new: they were built for a Russian airline that went bankrupt, never delivered, and stored in the desert until the USAF picked them up to make into the new presidential transport.

The cost had been announced as $3.9 billion in 2018, but expenditures for all military programs have a tendency to balloon. These aren’t off-the-shelf 747s, either. Just like the current two Air Force Ones, 30-year old airplanes derived from an earlier model of the Boeing double-decker and called VC-25A, they must be modified extensively before they are delivered in 2024.

The VC-25Bs are undergoing serious modifications and will be outfitted with the most advanced defense countermeasures, among other things, making them unique compared to their commercial cousins — hence, the need for those new manuals. Government Executive said, “The technical manuals will include more than 100,000 pages with the specifications for flying the plane as well as fixing it, according to people familiar with the high-profile project.” (That’s $840 a page.) According to the contract notice, the manuals are expected to be complete by Jan. 15, 2025.

Another factor that makes these manuals so pricey is the fact that some parts will be secret, so they have to be developed and printed under secure conditions. Military-system documentation tends to run on the pricier end. For instance, The Drive reminded us that the structural repair manuals for the Boeing P-8 Poseidon, a maritime-patrol jet derived from the 737,  cost the Navy $30 million back in 2014.

Boeing has a PDF version online of one of the 747-8 manuals. At 126 pages, it’s a slightly more manageable read than the 100,000-page behemoth the Air Force will have to deal with — and unlike the VC-25B’s manuals, it’s free to download.

Link

quote:

Boeing has a PDF version online of one of the 747-8 manuals. At 126 pages

Only 126 pages in the manual for a 747? I find this very hard to believe.

I have not done a page count, but I'm pretty sure that the POH (Pilots' Operating Handbook) for the V-Tail has more than 126 pages.

And we thought our Air Forces $1,800 toilet seats and $900 hammers were outrageous.

All I hear is Oink Oink Oink.
.

Insane. No matter how some asshole tries to justify it.

No machine created by humans, ever, needs a goddamn Manual that costs $84 Million.

Fuck every single human piece of shit involved in that decision chain and effort.

Wasteful fucking cocksuckers.

I can absolutely believe it'll be 100k pages.

When you add in all the auxiliary equipment added to the plane, operational manuals and maintenance manuals, in verbose military tech writer fashion, that shit adds up fast.

I worked on a missile fire control radar in the Navy, volumes upon volumes, pages upon pages for 1 radar. Easily 10k pages for ONE radar, and ALL on paper, no pdf's back then, no sir.

Trick is, most all that auxiliary equipment already has manuals in pdf, but they all have to be reformatted as spec'd for the aircraft...

You know billable hours to the Uncle. I bet Rhino could add cost details for some of the toys they have. I wonder how much the ejection seats cost. No wonder they can afford to give away expensive stuff to the poor guy who got ejected. Great advertising. They should do more, hell it was probably a little bit scary even for these fighter jockeys.

quote:

Originally posted by OKCGene:
And we thought our Air Forces $1,800 toilet seats and $900 hammers were outrageous.

All I hear is Oink Oink Oink.
.

The $600 hammer has quite a story behind it. It’s an accounting artifact.

“ The military bought the hammer, Kelman explained, bundled into one bulk purchase of many different spare parts. But when the contractors allocated their engineering expenses among the individual spare parts on the list-a bookkeeping exercise that had no effect on the price the Pentagon paid overall-they simply treated every item the same. So the hammer, originally $15, picked up the same amount of research and development overhead-$420-as each of the highly technical components”

“ The hammer got as much overhead as an engine," Kelman continued, despite the fact that the hammer cost much less than $420 to develop, and the engine cost much more-"but nobody ever said, 'What a great deal the government got on the engine!' "

This may be the explanation of the flight manuals

https://www.govexec.com/federa...the-600-hammer/5271/

As mentioned above, there’s usually an explanation.

Air Force One is a unique aircraft, with unique equipment.

If they are including all the text flights and so one required to prof equipment and procedures, $84 mill doesn’t seem unreasonable.

It’s the same testing a fleet of such aircraft would require (does installing this change stall recovery? Does it alter landing speed? Etc, etc?) ...but the expense isn’t borne by sales of multiple aircraft.

I am not shocked.
This is for one customer, the cost cannot be distributed for multiple copies going to multiple customers.

The engineers and other employees will be working on this when their time otherwise could be spent working on something for multiple customers.

The data contained within the manuals needs to be technically accurate, being safety related.

One off work is always expensive.

What do those here think the cost should be?
With the limited knowledge I have, I would have estimated $60 million.

quote:

Originally posted by 46and2:
Insane. No matter how some asshole tries to justify it.

No machine created by humans, ever, needs a goddamn Manual that costs $84 Million.

Fuck every single human piece of shit involved in that decision chain and effort.

Wasteful fucking cocksuckers.

+1

quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:
I am not shocked.
This is for one customer, the cost cannot be distributed for multiple copies going to multiple customers.

The engineers and other employees will be working on this when their time otherwise could be spent working on something for multiple customers.

The data contained within the manuals needs to be technically accurate, being safety related.

One off work is always expensive.

What do those here think the cost should be?
With the limited knowledge I have, I would have estimated $60 million.

Also don't forget that a vast amount of information on the plane is classified. Thay adds a whole other layer of complexity. Hense adds expense.

∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆
Yep, and that puts it up to $84 million.

If you need a manual,you shouldn’t be flying it.

Real men...

quote:

Originally posted by KLGUY:
If you need a manual,you shouldn’t be flying it.

Real men...

It is the Air Force - if it ain't written down, they can't do it.

Watching them do flight ops is similar to watching an IRS audit -

"Well, you need for DD3746-74-A5, filled out by the GFR and Ops, approved by the General. All to start and taxi, just valid for today".

Holy Sh@t. $84 million for an owners manual? Sounds to me like an undercovering Boeing Bailout...….

I've spent enough time on large government projects to know there is no doubt whatsoever that there's enough waste in this initiative alone for several here to retire comfortably for life.

Wasteful fucking assholes are who did that job, top down.

My guess is some of that is going to other secret stuff. That's where the $600 hammer money went according to a friend of mine who was an auditor of such things. That's all he could tell me, I'm still here.

I heard a rumor that the manual was leaked online. So I did a little digging and low and behold, I found it.
Air Force One by c b

[/QUOTE]Only 126 pages in the manual for a 747? I find this very hard to believe.

I have not done a page count, but I'm pretty sure that the POH (Pilots' Operating Handbook) for the V-Tail has more than 126 pages.[/QUOTE]

I looked and it's only an airport planning doc with airplane dimensions, turning radius, stuff like that.

http://www.boeing.com/assets/p...orts/acaps/747_8.pdf

Heck, our AOM (Aircraft Operating Manual) for the 737 is 761 pages, and that is just for how we fly it. The Reference Manual which describes the systems in lowest common denominator detail is another 897. Now figure in maintenance manuals and other tech docs and it adds up real fast.