5 ms·

Aren't these kind of odd prices usually just laundering money for black projects?

audessuscest 3y ago
black pocket ;)
mc32 3y ago
They would have to be making quite a bit of these to be able to get necessary funds. Mostly it’s just custom parts and the mfg is adding large margins but again on very low numbers of widgets.
hef19898 3y ago
Sometimes, but not always. People tend to underestimate how much costs are coming from certification, testing and corresponding warranties. The F-117 so did canabalize quite some "spares" bought for the F-16 and F-15 fleets.
- junon 3y ago
  A trash can needs to be tested and certified for use in the Pentagon? ... holding a small collection of waste is that intense eh?
  - breischl 3y ago
    They go into airplanes, not the Pentagon, which is right at the beginning of TFA. So they are probably weirdly shaped.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    If it goes on a plane, not as cargo but as part of the equipment: yes. Inflameable, certification paper work, corresponding risk for the supplier, obligations to provide said waste bin for, sometimes, 50 years after last serial delivery... That stuff adds up very quickly. Throw in low quantities, and the high NRC ammortized per unit, and that explains a bunch of said prices. Plus obligatory surcharge for being aerospace, plus obligatory surcharge for being military.
    - arethuza 3y ago
      There was a major incident with nuclear weapons caused by pillows on a B52 catching fire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash
      - sesuximo 3y ago
        The pillows were the fires fuel. The original cause was heater/cooler systems malfunctioning (at least based on the page you linked)
        arethuza 3y ago
        I probably could have worded that better but my point was that if the pillows hadn't been inflammable then the bomber probably wouldn't have crashed?
    - sesuximo 3y ago
      This doesn’t add up to 50k. Maybe 300. Probably not even
      - hef19898 3y ago
        Well, you can take that from someone who does it for a living (not for Boeing or the Pentagon, bit still), or not. Your choice. Whether or not 50k is actually justified or not, no idea. But the price for a new, low volume, production of obsolete aircraft spares is orders of magnitude more expensive than the original high volume one. And even it if is old stock, as soon as the low contractual prices are running out, everyone is paying market prices. And those mean: either you pay, you don't fly or you certify an alternative.
        jtbayly 3y ago
        There is only one buyer for these parts. "Paying the market price" means that Boeing charges whatever they want, and that's the market price, take it or leave it.
  - ChuckNorris89 3y ago
    Filing government levels of paperwork, especially for the defense sector is incredibly expensive. All that is reflect into the price of equipment.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    It is for a specific airplane, not a generic trash can sitting by someone's desk. It has to be a specific size, shape, weight, fire resistance, and probably other factors I can't think of.
  - ramses0 3y ago
    The traditional response is “over-specification” with a coffee pot on a commercial airliner needing to be certified against becoming a dangerous missile in the event of a plane crash (shatter, break, etc). Yes, it may be that the trash can or plastic had to be certified against breaking in a weird way since it’s a military plane and you don’t want plastic shrapnel in your soldiers (or whatever). It _could_ be that Boeing made 100 trash cans, threw away the mold, and had to re-make the mold in order to fulfill the order for 4 more trash cans. If not Boeing, potentially _their_ trash can supplier threw away the mold and you end up with the same price. So there MAY be a reasonable explanation, but it seems very egregious that the “before” and “after” prices are so dramatically different.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      You should have a look at the prices for aircraft spares, even re-used ones, and how much the same item costs when sourced for production. And that is without adding another 50% to the price in orser to get lead times down from 15 weeks to 15 days, from 15 days to 15 hours.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    > ... holding a small collection of waste is that intense eh? If it catches fire on the $330M plane it's made for, potentially. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash involved a ~$80M (adjusting for inflation) lost B-52, another $80M in cleanup costs, and a still missing 1.1 megaton nuclear weapon, over a couple pillows that caught fire.
easyThrowaway 3y ago
If by black projects you mean "Cayman bank accounts controlled by a shell company owned by a few Magnates and Government higher-ups", yes, sure they are.
Symmetry 3y ago
No. My understanding is that if its something the agency is buying from an external contractor that's too easy to get flagged in an audit and they use other sorts of expenses for shifting money to black projects. At least that's what I get form reading descriptions of the practice in books like Blind Man's Bluff.

black pocket ;)

mc32 3y ago

They would have to be making quite a bit of these to be able to get necessary funds. Mostly it’s just custom parts and the mfg is adding large margins but again on very low numbers of widgets.

hef19898 3y ago

Sometimes, but not always. People tend to underestimate how much costs are coming from certification, testing and corresponding warranties. The F-117 so did canabalize quite some "spares" bought for the F-16 and F-15 fleets.

junon 3y ago
A trash can needs to be tested and certified for use in the Pentagon? ... holding a small collection of waste is that intense eh?
- breischl 3y ago
  They go into airplanes, not the Pentagon, which is right at the beginning of TFA. So they are probably weirdly shaped.
- hef19898 3y ago
  If it goes on a plane, not as cargo but as part of the equipment: yes. Inflameable, certification paper work, corresponding risk for the supplier, obligations to provide said waste bin for, sometimes, 50 years after last serial delivery... That stuff adds up very quickly. Throw in low quantities, and the high NRC ammortized per unit, and that explains a bunch of said prices. Plus obligatory surcharge for being aerospace, plus obligatory surcharge for being military.
  - arethuza 3y ago
    There was a major incident with nuclear weapons caused by pillows on a B52 catching fire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash
    - sesuximo 3y ago
      The pillows were the fires fuel. The original cause was heater/cooler systems malfunctioning (at least based on the page you linked)
      - arethuza 3y ago
        I probably could have worded that better but my point was that if the pillows hadn't been inflammable then the bomber probably wouldn't have crashed?
  - sesuximo 3y ago
    This doesn’t add up to 50k. Maybe 300. Probably not even
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Well, you can take that from someone who does it for a living (not for Boeing or the Pentagon, bit still), or not. Your choice. Whether or not 50k is actually justified or not, no idea. But the price for a new, low volume, production of obsolete aircraft spares is orders of magnitude more expensive than the original high volume one. And even it if is old stock, as soon as the low contractual prices are running out, everyone is paying market prices. And those mean: either you pay, you don't fly or you certify an alternative.
      - jtbayly 3y ago
        There is only one buyer for these parts. "Paying the market price" means that Boeing charges whatever they want, and that's the market price, take it or leave it.
- ChuckNorris89 3y ago
  Filing government levels of paperwork, especially for the defense sector is incredibly expensive. All that is reflect into the price of equipment.
- bluGill 3y ago
  It is for a specific airplane, not a generic trash can sitting by someone's desk. It has to be a specific size, shape, weight, fire resistance, and probably other factors I can't think of.
- ramses0 3y ago
  The traditional response is “over-specification” with a coffee pot on a commercial airliner needing to be certified against becoming a dangerous missile in the event of a plane crash (shatter, break, etc). Yes, it may be that the trash can or plastic had to be certified against breaking in a weird way since it’s a military plane and you don’t want plastic shrapnel in your soldiers (or whatever). It _could_ be that Boeing made 100 trash cans, threw away the mold, and had to re-make the mold in order to fulfill the order for 4 more trash cans. If not Boeing, potentially _their_ trash can supplier threw away the mold and you end up with the same price. So there MAY be a reasonable explanation, but it seems very egregious that the “before” and “after” prices are so dramatically different.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    You should have a look at the prices for aircraft spares, even re-used ones, and how much the same item costs when sourced for production. And that is without adding another 50% to the price in orser to get lead times down from 15 weeks to 15 days, from 15 days to 15 hours.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > ... holding a small collection of waste is that intense eh? If it catches fire on the $330M plane it's made for, potentially. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash involved a ~$80M (adjusting for inflation) lost B-52, another $80M in cleanup costs, and a still missing 1.1 megaton nuclear weapon, over a couple pillows that caught fire.

easyThrowaway 3y ago

If by black projects you mean "Cayman bank accounts controlled by a shell company owned by a few Magnates and Government higher-ups", yes, sure they are.

Symmetry 3y ago

No. My understanding is that if its something the agency is buying from an external contractor that's too easy to get flagged in an audit and they use other sorts of expenses for shifting money to black projects. At least that's what I get form reading descriptions of the practice in books like Blind Man's Bluff.