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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

How much do you think it costs to restart the production line for a component of an aircraft last made in 1979?

It’s. A. Trash. Can.

This isn’t some specialized part that the plane requires to fly. It’s just a trash can.

Hell, just go to Target and buy one that’s similarly sized. It would be cheaper to fly across the country to find one at this point.

It is a trash can that must contain a waste fire so it doesn't burn through the wall of the plane or suffocate the crew.

It is a trash can that must not fly around the E-3's cabin if they're making evasive maneuvers.

It is a trash can that must fit in a specific spot in a plane first made in 1957 and ended production in the 1970s.

It must have been confirmed via a vigorous process to fulfill all these requirements and approved for aviation use.

You can not buy one of these at Target. They are not putting little plastic bins by the workstations in an AWACS plane.

> You can not buy one of these at Target. They are not putting little plastic bins by the workstations in an AWACS plane.

Apparently you could buy one for $300 though. I own a bin that isn't far off that price, and I'm sure many people on the site have much fancier ones.

> Apparently you could buy one for $300 though.

Yes, when they were being commercially manufactured for many users.

Now that 707s are no longer in service outside the military, they're not running production lines for parts except when needed; that $200k includes all the paperwork to win the contract, the lawyers who review it, un-mothballing whatever tooling they use, etc.; the fixed costs far outweigh the costs to make each individual trash can. For similar reasons, I can buy a part for my Corolla much cheaper than I can for a Model T.

> You can not buy one of these at Target

This is a site apparently populated by fairly bright people. I'm struggling to understand why no one seems to get this.

This is a site populated by a group of people that society massively overestimates the intelligence and competence of, and it very often goes to their head. The amount of software developers that actually have any real idea of what rigorous engineering actually is is vanishingly small and those that do usually only "get it" because they worked adjacent to disciplines that take it more seriously.

Not to say the average user here is an idiot, but it's pretty clear that cribbing together code in extremely low-risk environments doesn't impart any understanding of how designing, manufacturing, and supporting critical products over a 5+ decade lifespan is actually done.

I bet they’d recoil in horror when they hear that critical systems still use Ada, too. So archaic, so hard to make changes! Why can’t we write the nuclear weapons code in JavaScript or Rust instead?

> You can not buy one of these at Target. They are not putting little plastic bins by the workstations in an AWACS plane.

You do realize there are multiple trash cans available, right? Some that are metal. Of many different sizes.

It would take less time to go store to store across the country and source 4 trash cans than it would to do this ludicrous process.

> You do realize there are multiple trash cans available, right?

Certified for use on 707s? Again, this is not the sort of trash can you have in your office. It'll be rated for fire, it'll be in a special cart that fits into a special locking spot in the plane, it will have been tested to stay in that special locking spot if the plane crashes, etc.

It's like trying to buy Commodore 64 parts at Best Buy. Not going to happen.

You will not find a trash can in a store that meets the specifications document that defines an acceptable 707 trash can. There aren’t any being made by anyone that fit the precise military specification, so they must be manufactured at very low volumes, which spreads the overhead across far fewer units, resulting in eye-popping unit prices.

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