They’re buying four trash cans at a time via a process that can take months of paperwork by the contractor. It’s simply not designed for such low volume scenarios.

It’s a bit like doing a custom PCB design and fabrication run for personal reasons. It’ll be $10 worth of components, but a half dozen might cost you $1k if you want someone else to set up a run on their machines to make ‘em.

The Stinger missile example further down seems more egregious.

Bad example, JLCPCB will do PCBA for just a few dollars.

...in China. Which is where we don't want our manufacturing dollars or skill base to go.

Every single trashcan shipped from China for military purpose in US would have to be pulled apart, inspected down to nanolevel and then put back together. That would not be just a few dollars...

You can't be serious. Buy a plastic trashcan, use a generic metal scanner and an X-Ray and you are done.

If you are concerned about targeted attacks, head down to your local hardware store and buy one of the thousands they have in stock.

Just don't put it on an aircraft then.

Funny, HN was up in arms over Titan's use of a logitech controller just a few days ago. But somehow using something from best buy on a freaking expensive plane like an E-3 is a good idea. Well, folks, that way of thinking actually sank the Titan and cost five lives.

I don't think the controller would have gotten such a strong reaction if it was an X-Box 360 or X-Box One controller. Those are reliable, sturdy, and used as controllers in industry and military. But instead it was some $30 Logitech controller, something you would consider the budget choice in the context of somebody playing Call of Duty.

I guess the equivalent is putting the flimsy $1.25 trash can from Dollar Store in your spacecraft, instead of a $8 trash can.

A trash can is slightly less essential to a vessel's operation than its control surface.

Not if it catches fire.

Good example with pillows causing a (still!) missing nuclear weapon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash

> Buy a plastic trashcan... head down to your local hardware store...

It's for a highly specialized 707 airliner. It'll be metal, rated for fire resistance if someone sneaks a smouldering cigarette into it, wheeled for servicing, lock into place during flight, etc. You can't buy it at Home Depot, and intelligence agencies are constantly making smaller and harder to detect devices for bugging items.

The point actually is, if we are shooting at China for one reason or another we would be getting zero trash cans from them.

The choose some other manufacturer. E.g. Aisler will do assembly for 10 Boards for around 200€ in Germany, more than JLCPCB (this is probably in part due to the scale and automation with which JLCPCB operates), but much less than 1k.

What specifically do you find to be untrue?

I'd welcome your contrary explanation if you have one handy.

An alternate explanation would be that their accountants used the average cost method, and the trash can got averaged with a bunch of actual E-3 Sentry planes, or expensive component systems, or something.

This was the reason behind the $600 Hammer.

https://www.govexec.com/federal-news/1998/12/the-myth-of-the...

Corruption?

If you analyze how much the product and all associated processes can actually cost and then find a discrepancy (or find some pointless regulation that drives up the cost so much and explain how it was designed for profit and not purpose) then you can claim corruption. But simply saying "if prices look high to me it must mean corruption" is very naive.

If US gov bought cheap plastic stuff from another country instead there can well still be corruption expressed in their choice of suppliers etc.

"But simply saying "if prices look high to me it must mean corruption" is very naive."

Naive or not, this turns out to be true surprisingly frequently.

This is the money quote you can use to argue this is actually corruption:

> When the 707 fell out of use in the United States, the trash can was no longer a “commercial” item, meaning that Boeing was not obligated to keep its price at previous levels

So now one can look why it cost "mere" $300 before, unless Boeing losing money back then the price hike may be shady behavior and then someone should change supplier asap.

Single source supplier tend to have incresible bargaining power. And 50k per E-3 propably isn't even worth mentioning for everyone involved. Peanuts, actually.

"The sum is low enough so it's not corruption" is also naive. Another side of the same coin

No they don't... they are playing the devil's advocate I think or being sarcastic. This is just plain corruption and fraud but it's legal because defense sector...

How about you ask me what I think instead of telling me what I think.

Because what I think is not what you claim.

I was being sarcastic, I thought it was obvious. I'm not sarcastic on the fact that it is plain corruption though, it is.

You defending corruption and fraud is just so far fetched it's hard to take your OP seriously.

It's surprising to see people carrying water for the MIC in this way. Boeing already has the machines to make these kinds of things. It's just going to be sheet metal and plastic molds. Even assuming a one-off custom-fab job, $52k is obscene.

The plane was introduced nearly 70 years ago. Why would they keep around obsolete machines for which the last plane left the factory literally decades ago?

That's my point, you don't need specialty machines to make trash cans; it's going to be the same types of sheet metal benders that are used for other simple fixtures.