Every Bush flight is costly (Air Force One fuel costs 6k/hour)

[sabra]

http://www.kvia.com/global/story.asp?s=3905518&ClientType=Printable

Every Bush flight is costly

WASHINGTON President Bush is on his seventh trip to the Gulf Coast since Hurricane Katrina hit a month ago. The visit comes even as he encourages Americans to save gas, and to cut out unnecessary travel. He says federal employees will do the same.

The president's spokesman says this trip is, in fact, essential -- so the president can get a look at recovery efforts.

Spokesman Scott McClellan says the president's motorcade of gas-guzzling vans and S-U-Vs is being shortened. But it's hard to make similar savings on Air Force One. The Air Force recently estimated that fuel costs on the presidential aircraft have risen past six-thousand-dollars an hour, up from just under four-thousand in the last budget year.

[Vincardog]

1. When he goes on these political trips shouldn't the RNC pick up the tab?

[djeseru]

2. And this - this - idjit is telling us to conserve?!

:grr:

[Digit]

6. Yeah, what a frigging hippotwit

And it is only for MORE photo-ops!
:grr:

[moondust]

13. Conservation is for the little people doncha know.

[bloom]

3. He needs a smaller plane... eom

[wakeme2008]

22. He HAS a smaller plane

And COULD use it. :grr:

[fshrink]

4. Every single hour

the idiot spends doing whatever it is that he's doing is costly. In billions of dollars, in human life and in expenditures that will have to be paid for in the future. This administration is a monstruous, unprecedented waste.

[TahitiNut]

5. AF-1 isn't the only fuel-guzzler plane in the entourage.

It takes a C-130, I believe to carry the minimum number of motorcade vehicles and another C-130 to carry Marine-1 (the 'pResidential' helicopter), not to mention Marine-1's own fuel consumption. So, AF-1 isn't even the majority of the costs. Furthermore, military flights provide 'cover' wherever he flies and all commercial flights get rerouted/delayed. General aviation is required to avoid the "don't fly zones" above and around the Turd-in-Chief, too.

He's just a traveling clusterfuck! :grr:

[MissMarple]

7. They left huge gouges in the runway in Las Cruces last year.

Clinton and Bush 1 landed at a nearby field that could handle the excessive weight, then drove a bit further to their destination. But, not our Georgy, no siree. And the Pentagon doesn't want to pay enough to repair the damage.

Also, on Thursday their was a warning that George would visit Colorado Springs and air travel would be shut down for two days. But that didn't happen. We were gone, so I didn't see how long they shut it down.

[wakeme2008]

23. Two fighters normally

provide cover for AF1.

[Up2Late]

24. I just saw on CNN, one of their young guys with smart looking glasses

said that the $6000+ per hour was figured at $1.59 per Gallon, and that AF-1 getting 5 miles per Gallon, is any of that even close?

Sounds to me, like a they are low-balling the price of Kerosene and over estimating the fuel economy of AF-1, what do you think?

[DS1]

8. That's just the fuel - there was a Discovery Channel documentary

on Air Force One a few years ago, saying it cost 50,000 an hour to anywhere - due to fighter escort, FAA time, advance-parties, security, blackhawks in place and in the air before landing, and on and on and on.

[Poiuyt]

9. Why doesn't he set up a "Southern White House" and stay down there?

He could be on Bourbon Street so it would be easy for him to get scuppered to the gills every night.

[2Design]

10. locals can video tape or he could watch tv - this is photo op waste

of fuel and this guy is incompetent and a waste of tax payers money - cut the pork - he is useless

[bluedog]

11. 53,611 gallons

Air Force 1..Boeing 747.......53,611 gallons...fill up........$104,541

Marine 1.....Sikorsky.......VH-60N and VH-3D.up to 3 fly for security reasons..........360 and 840 gallons....$702 and $1,638 fill up

Motorcade..Chevy Suburban......12 vechicles 31 gallons each................$81 fill up

Cargo jet.C-5...55,417 gallons...$108,063 fill up



Based on $2,61 gallon reg unleaded gas and $1.95 jet fuel..........
Note: Jet fuel price from Dept of energy weekly report as of Aug 12.AAA gas price as of Aug 24

[lapfog_1]

16. And I thought you were going here

Not funding the needed infrastructure to protect your citizens so
you can fight an illegal and unnecessary war: priceless

Actually every trip in Air Force 1 costs something on the order of half a million to a million minimum.

There is Air Force 1 plus 2 to 3 C130 transports for motorcade, plus the
backup Air Force 1 (which doubles as the press plane), plus the
on ground vehicles and police escort and secret service and on and
on. I'm guessing at least a million per flight, and it really
doesn't matter where to, as fuel is such a small part of the total.

[Up2Late]

12. And the Associated Press are just NOW noticing and Reporting this NOW!?!

As we used to say when I was a kid, "NO Duh!"

And don't forget the 5 or 6 decoy Marine 1's they sometimes use because this guy is so hated.:banghead: :mad:

[wakeme2008]

25. Well even Clinton has two extra copters

when he was in Marine 1.

I worked north DC and on Fridays you could tell if Bill was going to CD for the weekend, the three Marine copters flying north. :)

[Up2Late]

28. Maybe you would know this, when and why is * using a Blackhawk now?

Have they retired the old Sikorsky's that were good enough for every other President since 1957?

I know they are working on designing the new fleet, but what's the deal with the Blackhawks?

[wakeme2008]

30. Sounds like Bush

if afraid of something. I do not remember anythng be three alike copters under Clinton.

[The_Casual_Observer]

14. What good did all of that travel do? Don't they judge the merits

of everything on some kind of scientific "metric", you know like they would do if you or I were applying for a research grant or something.

[superconnected]

15. And he's urging us to conserve gas.

How Republican of him.

[Demeter]

19. Love that Phrase!

"How Republican of him!" May I quote you?

[superconnected]

29. Go for it!

[tanyev]

17. Time to bolt a few more seats down in AF1 and sell tickets to

paying passengers. No more flying until that baby pays for itself. Isn't that how the free market works?

[defiant1]

18. Bahahaha....

I like it.

[Lisa]

27. They could call it "Air Head Air" ! Complimentary pretzels ... (n/t)

[defiant1]

33. LoL....

Zing!

[Demeter]

20. Let's Keep Bush In The Rose Garden

with or without the straight jacket. Let him know what it is to be beseiged, too poor to travel anywhere, even for a change.

[Enraged_Ape]

21. Hasn't this idiot heard of a (gasp) FAX MACHINE?

WebEx?

NetMeeting?

Speaker phone?

The conferencing switch on the average office telephone?

I think everyone but the most pathetically stupid Freeper sees this moran traveling around the country on the national dime and wonders why he can't accomplish more by using these late-20th-century technologies.

[Vinca]

26. Let's see . . . today I combined a trip to the grocery store with a stop

at the post office and a stop to hoard heating pellets at the Agway store and a stop to restock my antique shop space and a stop at the dump to limit myself to one well choreographed venture out a day in my fairly good mileage RAV4 . . . and he fires up the 747, traverses the countryside with a convoy of large SUV's and helicopters and it all amounts to public relations and general bull shit. GRRRRRR.

[Child_Of_Isis]

31. past six-thousand-dollars an hour,

Take that you freeps. Your tax dollars!!! But that's okay, eh? As long as a guy doesn't buy a "beer" on a "fema card".

[NYC]

32. Is YOUR trip necessary?

We need an updated poster:

Needless travel interferes with the rescue effort.