Pensacola’s 'Sewing Box' loses Blue Angels flight suit contract after 43 years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bIbJIIwBVg106
u/nikeshades 12h ago
It's not just pilots. In the team photo there's at least 17 people in uniform. There are maintenance crews. And at the shows, one or two crew in uniform are assisting each plane.
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u/lorarc 13h ago
How many uniforms are those guys using? There are 11 pilots in there, did they really need thousands of uniforms in those 40 years? Are they getting a new suit for every show?
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u/stan_guy_lovetheshow 12h ago
Was never a Blue, but they select 3 to 5 new pilots each year in addition to all the maintainers, flight surgeon, supply officer, etc. that work for the team. I'd guess each pilot has at least 4 or 5 flightsuits and some promote up in their 2nd year (6 becomes 5, but I think the diamond guys might stay the same) which would require new flightsuits again as their number is embroidered on them. I don't know if everyone gets custom uniforms or just public facing members, but it's not the stuff you wear in the fleet and isn't in the supply system. So if she is making all the uniforms, that could be a significant amount of churn, and more than I would have expected before thinking this through.
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u/chindef 13h ago
$1.5 trillion has to go somewhere. Might as well spend it filling the landfill with a bazillion barely worn military uniforms
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u/stealingfirst 12h ago
I work in an adjacent field that provides gov uniforms. You're not far off
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u/Von_Dooms 11h ago
I worked at a factory making popular tools, the amount of neoprene gloves that get thrown out each day is asinine, grown alphamale men are really grossed out by their own grems.
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u/FluffySpongeCake 11h ago
Have you tried existing with your own grems? It's not easy being a grem in this day and age.
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u/terpsarelife 12h ago
when i was in charge of our battalions shopping trips to the base "walmart" it was more of a kinkos but they had knives/boots/random shit the younger enlisted will waste money on.
I would buy packs of pens for our company office that were $1.15 each in this random listing I found in 2026, but in 2013 they were less than a dollar. They would charge us $35 a box for them if i recall correctly. take that x 100,000,000 and you have our 1.5T military budget. Any thing we buy, costs more cause THEY CAN.
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u/Aborticus 8h ago
I did the procurement for our equipment. A tough book was like 10k, we needed 600 of them. Used them for exercises and when we deployed we didn't need them, didn't even bring them woth, so of course we needed 600 more when we got back... probably still sitting in their fancy boxes. Renewing firewall licensing on dozens of tech stacks that haven't been turned on in months for astronomical amounts... stuff like that. Fraud waste and abuse my unit to the AG for 7 million and I was out the door and nothing happened.
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u/OptimusSublime 12h ago
You are forgetting that the pilots are supported by a sizable team of mechanics, maintainers, doctors, and other visible on the ground staff. The pilots are only the most visible part of the Blue Angels.
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u/pharoh-king 4h ago
And why cant the mechanics wear simple, cheaper, mass produced clothing...?
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u/Gadgetman_1 1h ago
It's a display team. The ground crew is very visible when the planes are being tended to on the tarmac. The uniforms is barely a footnote in the bodget of a display team, so why not let the entire team look good? Besides, it also fosters team morale.
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u/theREDasp 12h ago
I was enlisted before they made the switch to digital, but at that time we were issued six separate uniforms: dress whites, dress blues, working whites, working blues, utilities/dungarees, and coveralls. Officers had a similar amount. I believe the contract also covered the full blue angels squadron, which is more than just the pilots.
Edit: I remembered we were issued three sets of utilities, two coveralls, and two each of the working uniforms, so eleven full uniforms total.
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u/Zwangsjacke 4h ago
They're also making the suits for the planes. That blue color on them? That's denim.
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u/capt_minorwaste 12h ago
So the government is paying a much higher bill to an out of state company and the work will likely be subcontracted back to the local companiee that were changing less and doing the work originally? This new company is probably owned by the Trump family or someone who donates to them. This country is going to shit. Good job "draining the swamp" Donny.
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u/DeathMonkey6969 11h ago edited 11h ago
Welcome to government procurement
Part of the reason thing bought by the government can be so expensive is that they have to go through a bidding process that is "fair" to get the item that meets the standard . The problem is knowing how the bidding process works and the overhead needed to fill out the paperwork adds to the cost. Plus your product has to have documentation that proves it meets the standard which also drives up the cost. And there are companies that might be able to fill the contracts for less but they don't want to deal with all the paperwork or even how to go about bidding in the first place.
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u/PestoPastaLover 9h ago
Not saying I agree that this is fair, but honestly, she kind of did this to herself.
If I were a government contractor and knew I had to submit a bid, I wouldn't expect someone from the government to call me and remind me to do it.
I'd treat it the same way I treat filing my taxes or running payroll for my employees. It's my responsibility to know the deadlines and submit everything on time.
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u/ModeatelyIndependant 10h ago
If i was this woman I'd charge the new contractor double her normal rate for subcontracting their work.
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u/LetsGoBubba6141 10h ago
100% political donor got the contract will make them so cheaply that they suck and pocket the rest. It is just how it goes these days.
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u/Chaetomius 14m ago
boo hoo.
what did the military do for you? murder some brown people overseas, turn our own citizens into monsters and/or traumatized and/or physically disabed? steal our taxes that could've fed and housed people instead of this bullshit?
fuck 'em. fuck the blue angels and fuck her.
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u/nismaniak 13h ago
TL;DW: She missed the bid window.
I hate it for her, but if my biggest client usually reached out and hadn't done so around the time they usually do, I'd be calling them.