In this article from the Hill, the White House and the Defense Department are hammering details for a replacement to the VH-3's flown as Marine One shuttling the president around. The previous development effort known as the VH-71 was cancelled although not all of the spending on that program is over. Seems prime contractor Lockheed had some built in penalties that required compensation for early termination. Normally I would rant on about Lockheed screwing us all over but there is a lot of blame to go around on that program, not just to Lockheed. This is not unlike the cancelled A-12 from long ago, that case is still in the court system. 
The VH-71 was troubled and infested with requirements creep. No one wanted to say "No" to anything proposed and it became a monstrosity. They did build 4 test vehicles and 9 "Pilot production" aircraft. And they do look nice in presidential colors.
But for the good of going forward they need to put the big stake in the heart and kill off this entire program. They also need to figure a way to embed more favorable terms to the public on government contracts. Makes no sense to me to continue using up valuable tax dollars to simply pack up and shred documents and move hardware into a warehouse or to the surplus sales yard. You'd think the loser would simply say thank you for the money over the years and move on to the next program. Instead they continue to pick the pocket of the public of all the money they can lay claim to. Of course it would help if the Civil Servants tasked with overseeing all this activity actually did that job. Well, not if they want to go to work for them later in the future.
Hat Tip to: Alert5
BT: Jimmy T sends.
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