A Victory for Reason

As a private citizen and taxpayer, I'm glad to see the foreign controlled Augusta Westland US-101 chosen as the replacement helicopter for the Presidential fleet. It's stronger and faster than the American entry in the bidding and it has a bigger cargo box. The expectations are that whatever the President gets will be the same things that troops get when they need comparable capabilities. If it's good enough for a guy that has some fairly stringent security and reliability requirements, it'll probably do the job for we "dogs of war".

Now I'm not real big on sending jobs overseas, but I like high end goods that get the job done. The American competitor "Sikorsky" wanted to sell it's existing Blackhawk performance components and was just going to beef them a bit and put on a bigger cargo box.

I don't like helicopters in the first place, but I've spent plenty of time in Blackhawks. They may get the Army job done, but they don't cut it for some of the missions we do in the AF. We've got to go deep enough to support special ops and rescue downed pilots and that means Long Legs, Heavy Lift and Big Guns.

A story:

Last Saturday my son and I were driving through the ice storm on the east coast. There was unplowed snow in places on the road and there were other spots that were clear. Suddenly a furrow of snow plowed up by an 18 wheeler took me out of my lane and threw the car. I let off the gas and counter-steered to correct as we shot across 2 lanes of traffic sliding down the road sideways.

The anti-skid power matching went to work and we fish-tailed left and right while I re-applied power. By the time I got it straightened out, I'd only lost about 5 miles per hour. I'm sure the soccer moms behind me in the minivans were scared to death and wondering how I did it. Even though I was sideways in front of them, they barely had to slow down.

What's the point? I drive a 7 year old BMW 328i. It's got 136,000 miles on it. It runs like a rocket and gets nearly 30 MPH at freeway speeds. There may be an American car that could have kept me out of the median last Saturday, but I've never driven one. When I rely on the goods to keep me alive, I don't care where the goods are made. I don't care about the politics or the unions. I want the good stuff.

I feel the same about the beast that's going to carry the Commander-In-Chief and perhaps one day deliver my troops into combat.
You want the contract? Build the better product instead of counting on lobbyists and politics to deliver the pork.

Why is this a Victory for Reason? That's what making the right choice is.