'Kerry Air' Grounded Again, This Time In Vienna
Source: Associated Press
By BRADLEY KLAPPER and MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press
VIENNA (AP) -- The United States may be the mightiest military and economic power in the world but when it comes to shuttling its top diplomat around the globe, it's beginning to look like a poor orphan.
For the fourth time this year - and the second time in three months, Secretary of State John Kerry was forced to fly home commercially when his aging Air Force Boeing 757, known in military parlance as a C-32, was grounded on Thursday with a mechanical problem in Vienna.
Inconvenient? Undoubtedly. Kerry, heading back to Washington from nuclear talks with senior European and Iranian officials, made light of the situation, telling aides: "If the hardest thing that happens in a given day is that you have to fly commercial, your life is pretty good."
Embarrassing? Perhaps. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif chuckled when he learned of Kerry's predicament. "So it is not just our planes," Zarif said. Iran hasn't been able to refurbish its pre-1979 fleet of Boeing aircraft because of heavy U.S. sanctions.
Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_KERRY_PLANE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-10-16-14-13-24
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KamaAina
(78,249 posts)
justhanginon
(3,289 posts)Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)is a fair assessment. I've worked on aircraft - OLD aircraft - and they're as good as they're maintained. You can take any plane and make it like new - or perform like new. And in fact, that's pretty much what most AF aircraft are kept like. Not all things that can fail will give a warning that they're about to fail. Many things will work fine until the break. That's just how it is. I sorta laugh at folks who lament about their car, or printer, or laptop, or (fill in the blank) __________________... "I don't understand! It was working fine yesterday!" Yeah, well, now it needs repair.
When I was in the Air Force in 1964, our unit recieved a plane that had been in service since 1945. We did maintenance and repairs as were required and the plane kept on serving when called upon.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)but the C-32 is a highly modified version, delivered as new in 1998...It's not "aging" by any stretch of the imagination...
The VC-25 frames (a.k.a Air Force One) date back to 1987 and even they aren't scheduled to be replaced until 2020...
cheapdate
(3,811 posts)Not everything that happens requires instant commentary and analysis. Bullshit story.
karynnj
(59,501 posts)"Inconvenient? Undoubtedly. Kerry, heading back to Washington from nuclear talks with senior European and Iranian officials, made light of the situation, telling aides: "If the hardest thing that happens in a given day is that you have to fly commercial, your life is pretty good."
It DOES seem that it did make it impossible for him to use the flight time for work - as he could not link into meetings or speak to leaders. However, there are times when a break from issues, allows you to come back refreshed and looking at things from a slightly different angle.
I wonder if the planes higher rate of problems is simply a reflection that he has flown more than any past SoSs, and they flew a lot!
cheapdate
(3,811 posts)There's zero time for reasoned reflection. Something that happened yesterday can be the subject of endless, fact-free speculation and bloviating by the next day, and the subject of political campaign ads by the next evening.
Its completely ridiculous. It's not a part of any sane or rational decision making process.
Welcome to the looney bin.
karynnj
(59,501 posts)I doubt that it will become part of any discussion, You, of course, have the choice not to click on ANY thread. I assure you that there are plenty less news worthy.
I did not see you complain about the endless bloviating on this very long, not very insightful thread that had many comments on the opinion of a Libertarian comedian ignorantly commenting on Hillary Clinton's chances in 2016. http://metamorphosis.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=367986 Apparently, that was news worthy enough for you.
There were plenty of intelligent threads that showed that she outpolled everyone - that - not the inane Maher comments could lead to a good conversation ...... After the 2014 election.
cheapdate
(3,811 posts)It was tangential thought, shared haphazardly and without much explanation.
It was a criticism, or complaint I have (one of many) with news coverage in the mass media.
The gist of it has to do with how I've noticed that there are panel discussions, harsh, questioning editorials, calls for blood, calls for inquiry, etc, etc, over events that might have happened 24 hours ago.
I'm not giving examples. It was a semi-random thought brought about by the AP's "Kerry-Air" story.
karynnj
(59,501 posts)attention -- in the media and here.
If your problem was HOURS of uninformed commentary -- why not post on one of the less knowledge based Ebola stories. I picked the one I did because it was a huge number of posts that went to a story of what a cynical libertarian talking head said about the chances of someone who ALL sensible people see as a very likely next President. It was not whether Clinton has a good chance, but that Maher said she didn't. THAT qualifies as hours of conversation on nothing solid.
This on the other hand was a very small news story about the travels of the SoS. I suspect that had it been HRC as SoS, you would have no problem.
cheapdate
(3,811 posts)Your guidelines and recommendations for postings are taken under advisement.
karynnj
(59,501 posts)serious discussion has any room to talk.
It wasn't me that suggested guidelines or declared anything as not worthy of being either in the news or on DU. I have no problem with silly or inconsequential threads - that was you! Look in the mirror. It is extremely hard to make the case that the many posts on that thread - including yours - were part of an important, thoughtful discussion.
Given the format of DU, it is unlikely that a serious, thoughtful discussion of anything was lost because this item.
In fact, there was little coverage of the more important aspects of Kerry's trip -- including the donor's meeting in Cairo for rebuilding Gaza which included several countries arguing that the hard work of a two state solution needed to be revisited, a meeting with Lavrov to try to lessen the estrangement with Russia, the negotiations with Iran and diplomacy with regards to Daesh (ISIL). Now, all of those could have merited serious discussion. After all, it is just the foreign policy of a sitting Democratic President. (Note the same was true when HRC was SOS. More attention was given to silly flareups - like http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x351925 rather than any serious threads on the commendable work that Clinton did in the days before that. )
There will be a time when the 2016 Presidential election will rightfully take over the lion's share of DU. However, it is entirely unlikely that the opinions of Bill Maher will ever be a factor in who the nominee in either party is or who the victor is.
cheapdate
(3,811 posts)which was an idle, underdeveloped criticism of the mass media and the deleterious effect of the 24-hour news cycle and the insatiable frenzy of fact-free speculation that typically precedes any reasonable period of fact finding or serious reflection, and that occurs with predictable frequency nowadays.
It wasn't about the AP article per se, or about purveyor's OP. It was my mind wandering from an innocuous story about secretary Kerry's flight delay, to the plausible, but hypothetical, media and political circus that easily springs from such events.
You are exactly correct that the REAL story is the foreign policy behind Kerry's travels. I couldn't agree more. The real story behind Benghazi is, or should be, about U.S. foreign policy objectives in Libya and the rest of the region. That's an important discussion, but one that almost never comes up in the endless media dissection of Susan Rice's remarks on the Sunday Talk shows.
I have no idea what you point is about Hillary. In the Maher thread, I made a short post saying that I thought she was nearly unbeatable if she runs. In other posts, I've defended her performance as secretary of state in detail. I've argued against the harshest critics of Hillary on DU until I'm tired of it.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)
Iamthetruth
(487 posts)I can have one delivered to me if the one I was to be on has problems, Kerry should look into this.
marshall
(6,665 posts)With all the flight time he logs in, he deserves some degree of comfort. Coach is almost impossible to fly comfortably in these days.
Lurks Often
(5,455 posts)what is important is the amount of flight time an aircraft has had. The military measures it by the number of flight hours on the airframe and the airlines measure it by the number of complete flight cycles, meaning the number of take offs and landings a commercial airliner completes.
Some examples of the difference the airframe life for military or former military/civilian aircraft:
The B-52, the production of which ended in 1968, is supposed to be good for about 25,000 flight hours on the airframe.
The C-130 is rated for about 30,000 hours on the airframe
Fighters such as the F-15 & F-16 have a much lower flight hour maximum because of the stresses the higher performance places on the airframe.
The DC-3/C-47 appears to go on indefinitely as there are several DC-3/C-47's with flight hours on the airframe in excess of 75,000 hours and there is at least one with more then 100,000 hours on the airframe and it is still being flown on the air show circuit.
Tatiana
(14,167 posts)Can't they get him another plane?
Not that flying commercial is such a horrible thing, but it certainly limits his work capabilities.
candelista
(1,986 posts)"So it's not just our planes."
