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In article , Lee Witten
wrote:

Whoa! $6.1 Billion for 23 units is $265 million per helicopter.
I dunno sounds like a lot...too much actually.

And of course, one may wonder why we need 23 helicopters for 1 president?

Because they serve people other than the President. And there are other
security concerns as well.

For starters, whenever Marine One flies, there are two other identical
helicopters flying with it, as decoys. I live near Washington and have
watched Marine One come in to land at the White House. If you look, you can
usually see the other two helos flying around. I have also seen three of
them land down on the Mall, carrying a lot of VIPs. I think that the German
Prime Minister was in town that time. Plus they're going to have several
that are deployable, several in training, several in maintenance.

I think that 23 is somewhat high, but I can easily see how they would need
more than a dozen of them.



D