Civil aviation projects are not much better. I once worked for a sub-contractor on a contract to develop the software for a pair of cockpit display units (Hone

Civil aviation projects are not much better. I once worked for a sub-contractor on a contract to develop the software for a pair of cockpit display units (Honeywell's DU-875/DU-885 units). We had a large amount of documentation -- at least a half metre or so -- before we even left the design phase. And this was just for the application software. The operating system and hardware had a couple times that amount. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire system amounted to at least 4-5 metres of docs upon completion. This was legitimate documentation; we didn't BS, we were just very very detailed. The standard (DO-178B) specifies how detailed you need to be, not how much you need to produce. In fact, as I recall, I spent most my time maintaining documentation.