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"Typically it's assumed that there is at leas factor of ten increase when developing with aerospace standards. " To my understanding Skunk Works developed e.g.
by fsloth 10y ago
"Typically it's assumed that there is at leas factor of ten increase when developing with aerospace standards. "
To my understanding Skunk Works developed e.g. the Blackbird from scratch with much better cost efficiency than a modern greenfield project would if they followed best practices written in stone. I think high quality engineering can be implemented with far less cost if the project allows for iterative development and efficient communication and ownership between stakeholders (e.g. the engineer and the machinist can figure things out on their own instead of rotating everythong through cost and quality control authorities). Ben Rich [0], an ex Skunkworks director laments at length of the inefficiency of bureaucratic style of product development - which is probably an outgrowth of the same phenomena that causes so many bullshit jobs. So, to my mind what things like F-35 cost and what are the intrinsic costs of proper, durable engineering are not entirely related.
[0] Rich, Skunk works
- nabla9 10y agoI'm not talking about developing experimental aircraft, I'm talking about manufacturing and maintaining safety critical equipment for everyday use. If you could order wide body jet without the attached standards, they would be able to build exact replica of the fleet with fraction of the cost. Same aluminum pieces with random quality inspections is much cheaper than every piece of aluminum checked and tested before installing, plus verifying that it's tested and inspected. Installing that piece would be cheaper if there would be no inspectors for every phase of work doubling or tripling the manpower. Just tightening a bolt is cheap. Tightening it the right amount, cheeking that it has been done correctly etc. are costly. Astronauts living in ISS periodically inspect every hatch and every safety critical device. Their days are filled with checklists. Things wear down and break and small undetected error can end life.
- fsloth 9y agoI'm not disagreeing with anything you say. I just pointed out that it's not obvious what are the necessary costs of durable systems and engineering. As for my example, I think it meets the criterion for a good example. Blackbird was not 'experimental', it was designed as a workhorse and functioned and operated as such.