Air Force One

I just read where they have reached tentative agreement on the new Air Force One jets for the POTUS. I joined Boeing in 1987 and heard this story from some of the senior engineers about how Boeing won the AF-One contract back in the 1980s.

Boeing was proposing a 747. Lockheed was proposing an L1011 and McDonnel-Douglas was proposing a DC-10 (I think). Each company came in with volumes of technical proposals but, as the story goes, when they submitted their cost proposals, Boeing submitted a single piece of paper with a bid of $1. The Boeing president told the AF contracting officer, "Boeing will build AF-One for one dollar. AF-One WILL BE a Boeing jet!"

This is the story I was told and at the time, being a wet behind the ears engineer I believed it! I realize now it was more of an urban legend than actual event. Since the planes were WAY over-budget it was probably a way of saying that Boeing essentially 'bought the contract' (way under-bid) for the PR value of that distinctive 747 ('the plane with the hump on top') being seen on TV all over the world.

I was also told by one of the grey beard engineers (of which I are now one) that Boeing was supposed to build two 'identical' 747s but that one is 2 feet longer than the other one due to tolerance build up over the plane 230 foot length. So they had to have release a new set of cabling drawings to build longer cables since the added length put them out of tolerance on cable lengths. OK, this story was told to me by my old boss who shall remain anonymous but I will call him Monty, who had a tendency for telling tall tales. So don't quote me on any of this.