In a Wall Street Journal article touting our nation’s ability to produce WWI bombers at a high rate, the subheadline read
At its peak, a Ford factory produced one B-24 bomber an hour during World War II.
The article went on to brag about that production rate in the context of a 2018 Boeing contract to produce two new Air Force Ones by 2024, with Boeing’s schedule now claiming delivery by 2029.
The B-24 production rate, though, is badly misleading. That’s how often a B-24 rolled off the production line. The real question, the serious question in this context of producing a single airplane, or just two of them, is this one: how long did any particular aircraft spend on that B-24 production line from first part being assembled to final article coming off the line?
It’s true enough that a modern Air Force One is a more complex machine than a mid-20th century bomber, but the modern airplane shouldn’t be taking 11 years, or more, to construct, especially one being built on a basic airframe that’s already been long in production.
Boeing has wasted far too much time pretending to work on a new Air Force One, and that contract needs to be canceled and a new contract let with an aircraft manufacturer that will take the task seriously. However, using misleading statistics like the one above reduces the credibility of any discussion of Boeing’s failure to perform.