{"id":34723,"date":"2013-03-25T04:55:36","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T08:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=34723"},"modified":"2013-03-24T11:56:31","modified_gmt":"2013-03-24T15:56:31","slug":"loving-to-fly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=34723","title":{"rendered":"Loving to Fly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apparently the former SECDEF wasn’t the only one regularly flying home most weekends.\u00a0 It seems as if our VP loves flying on government aircraft, too.<\/p>\n

The VP has an official residence in DC.\u00a0 He also owns a home in Wilmington, DE – about 110 miles away.<\/p>\n

As a Senator, he apparently took the train from DC to Wilmington on weekends.\u00a0 Once he became VP, according to Biden the Secret Service put the kibosh on that for security reasons.<\/p>\n

However, as VP most weekends he’s still been going home. He’s a member of a rather exclusive club in Wilmington, and likes to golf there.\u00a0 And since it’s his home, presumably he likes the area too.<\/p>\n

So he’s been flying home.\u00a0 He’s generally been using Air Force Two to fly to Wilmington<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Air Force Two is a modified Boeing 757.\u00a0 It has an operating cost of around $8,800 per hour.\u00a0 Add to that operating cost whatever it costs to get him to\/from Andrews AFB to catch his flight and to\/from his home in Wilmington, DE, of course.\u00a0 Plus crew salaries, and travel expenses if they stay for the weekend.\u00a0 Plus the travel expenses for his protection detail – as well as additional salaries for same whenever his family doesn’t come with him.<\/p>\n

Ya know, if it were me I think I’d just drive.\u00a0 Seems to me that would be possible for the VP, too – even if he might have to wait until after rush hour to leave.\u00a0 By the time he gets from his Naval Observatory residence to Andrews, catches his flight, flies to Wilmington, gets off, and then goes home, I’m guessing he burns at least an hour – if not closer to an hour and a half.\u00a0 At off-peak hours, it’s only about a 2-hour drive.\u00a0 And I’ll guarantee someone else will be doing the driving, too.<\/p>\n

And if the Secret Service nixed that (which is entirely possible due to security concerns if being done on a regular basis), I think I’d either just stay in DC most weekends – or at least see if Marine 2 might be available to take me vice Air Force Two.\u00a0 Even a VH-3D has to be less expensive to operate than a 757.<\/p>\n

But we should feel sorry for our poor Mr. VP.\u00a0 According to recent remarks Biden made to the National Association of Attorneys General, sequestration is going to force him to go back to using the train.<\/p>\n

Which brings a question to mind:\u00a0 if it’s OK for you to resume using the train due to sequestration, Mr. VP – then why in the hell haven’t you been using it all along<\/em>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apparently the former SECDEF wasn’t the only one regularly flying home most weekends.\u00a0 It seems as … Loving to Fly<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[213,46,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-tax-dollars-at-work","category-barack-obama","category-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}