A parliamentarian discovered that US Air Force pilots drank their coffee in flight in high-tech cups at the exorbitant price of $ 1,200 each.
The US Air Force is at the center of a new scandal since a parliamentarian discovered that American pilots were drinking their coffee in flight in high-tech cups at the exorbitant price of 1200 dollars each.
The cups in question are not ordinary porcelain coffee cups, or even those huge insulated mugs that Americans are fond of, but containers made of a special alloy of copper and chrome, equipped with a plug that allows for connect them directly to the plane's electrical system to keep the coffee at a good temperature.
According to a spokesman at Travis Air Force Base in California, the cost of each of these mugs has risen from $ 693 in 2016 to 1220 in 2018, for one reason only: the plastic handle of the container is not replaceable. "Unfortunately, when the cup falls, the plastic handle breaks, which has led to thousands of dollars being spent to replace the cups," said Sgt. James Hodgman in a statement.
"Irresponsible"
A detail that an influential parliamentarian, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, found hard to swallow. In a letter to Air Force Chief Heather Wilson, the senator demanded explanations for these exaggerated expenditures, which he described as "irresponsible use of public money" .
In her recently released response, Wilson acknowledged that these were "irresponsible" expenses, explaining these overruns by the fact that the manufacturers stopped producing the necessary spare parts.
She added that the US Air Force thought they had found the solution: repair the cups itself. "We recently demonstrated that we can make handles with a 3D printer for 50 cents each ," she said.
US parliamentarians have recently approved escalating military budgets, but they have also criticized the exorbitant price of some items, including $ 10,000 room-sized eyeglasses for the C-17 cargo plane.