But even granting your argument that some CUV buyers are deluded or keeping up with the Joneses, what is the affirmative case for the sedan? Even if you don’t personally see the appeal in things like ride height or cargo space for a given length, they aren’t made up preferences. I could just as easily say that…

Automakers making decisions we don’t like is not the same as those decisions not making sense. It seems pretty obvious to state this, but here we are.

nah, pretty sure he’s talking about taking it from our obscenely huge military budget (thus the “two days of military spending” line). That money wouldn’t be going to any social programs anyway.

Either way, the 225 wasn’t specifically needed for that mask shipment.

They started shipping masks and other Covid supplies with the 225 because we ran out of cargo planes.

True, tbh, I never even heard it was being used for masks, but you are 100% correct there, anything smaller than a dumptruck and most normal planes could do it more efficiently.

In regards to the conversation with Turkey, he was speaking about a conversation in the past. That conversation with the Turkish President happened in January of this year when Zelensky met with Erdogen in Turkey and Erdogen asked if Ukraine was interested in the project if Turkey could get investors lined up and if…

On paper, all of the non-Russia SSRs were independent countries and control of the government-owned company Antonov was assigned to the Ukrainian SSR. Also, the headquarters and most of the facilities were located there.

I mean, in fairness, none of the theoretical $800 million is going to social programs either. Just Lockheed exec pockets.  

$30,000 per flight hour is less than I would have expected for a massive and unique aircraft. I don’t know what Antonov was charging per hour, but I’d imagine they made a solid profit moving cargo that no other plane could. If they really can finish the 2nd airframe for under $1,000,000,000 I think it could pay for…

True. Masks weren’t it though. 

While nice, I don’t think that load of masks specifically demonstrates the need for a new 225, it just means it was also used for general purposes. Any number of smaller flights could still have performed the task. The need would be for particularly heavy, or specifically outsized cargo.

“Don’t start your replies with “uh”, it just makes you seem like an asshole”

Also, Ukraine says they want to use reparations to pay for the plane, so it wouldn’t compete with military and humanitarian needs at that point. 

3 Billion to send a middle finger to the Russians?

It absolutely has been missed.

On one hand, I can’t help wondering if there’s enough of a market for hauling ultra-big cargo, so investing the time and money in the airframe are not only cost-justifiable, but profitable for Ukraine—they certainly need the cash flow. But three billion bucks concentrated in one plane hopping around the globe working…

The US should just front the money. It’s not necessarily a good financial buy but since when has that stopped us - We’ve certainly found more creative ways to waste money. This one has serious middle finger to Putin value, plus Ukrainian solidarity value at the cost of a little less than 2 days worth of military…

If it’s commercially viable, it’ll be ok to front the money as it will make it back, but that should be factored in, of course. 

While the crowdfunding was dumb especially in the middle of a war and a humanitarian crisis, which are better uses for the money, the stated goal is for reparations to be used to build the second Mriya, so it would necessarily be after the war.