soap dispensers
Sounds like money laundering was going on.
Cool I’m so glad I got wildly overpriced soap dispensers on planes I’ll never board for the fucking huge chunk of cash our useless fucking government takes from me instead of healthcare, or roads that aren’t full of potholes, or properly functioning public transit, I love this country and my life
Boeing keeps stepping on the rake.
I mean, wouldn’t you if the rake handle had huge bags of cash tied to it? They’ll always step on the rake but they’re practiced enough that they only get hit in the face occasionally.
This is exactly what happens when the system is based on lowest bid contracts.
You didn’t think they actually spent ten thousand dollars for a hammer and thirty thousand for a toilet seat, did you?
Came here to post this lol
I’m so fucking glad I’m not the only one who IMMEDIATELY thought of that guy saying that line
What’s the reference?
Independence Day (1996)
They just walked in to the underground lab beneath Area 51. The president was curious how it was paid for.
What kindernacht said.
Judd Hirsch plays Jeff Goldblum’s character’s dad, who has low tolerance for bullshit lol
I knew someone would post this fast and I was not dissapointed.
For its part, Boeing representatives announced they are “reviewing the report, which appears to be based on an inapt comparison of the prices paid for parts that meet aircraft and contract specifications and designs versus basic commercial items that would not be qualified or approved for use on the C-17,” the company said in a statement.
looks dubiously at dispenser
In what way is the right-hand soap dispenser not adequately qualified?
EDIT: It looks like the C-17 can fly pressurized, so I don’t think that it can be undergoing pressure changes, which is the one thing that I could think of.
The COTS unit shown there is not tested and certified to the contract requirements Boeing was working to. Simple as. If the price ridiculous? Absolutely yes. But you cannot go to a home hardware store and slap one in a plane.
If I can slap it in a collapsible sub, I can slap it in an airplane!
Besides, it’s not like it’s supposed to be what’s holding the door plug on.
Well ya can but you’re taking some risks if you do. Your soap dispenser might not work worth a shit if you haven’t tested it.
I’m 90% sure these deals are a way to funnel money into defense contractors without having a suspicious paper trail.
Overcharge a bit here and there, and by sheer volume you get a nice shadow budget to build and operate things that aren’t even supposed to exist.
The cabin is usually pressurized to the equivalent of 8000 ft asl. So the dispenser does have to deal with pressure changes. A simple vent hole aught to take care of that though.
Also, as the safety briefing says, “we do not anticipate a change in cabin pressure,” but if a rapid decompression should occur, there was probably some provision made so that the soap dispenser doesn’t just shatter or explode or something.
I would say kinda based if it wasn’t my tax dollars going toward that crap. Starts to put the massively over-inflated military budget into perspective.
This isn’t oniony. It happens all the time. The ongoing theory is that it’s done to cover top secret expenditures.
It’s much more likely to be corporate kickbacks for political donations.
I know “everybody does it” isn’t a valid excuse, but… everybody does it.
And why exactly did they pay it?
I work in this space. There’s a wide variety of reasons, a company being dumb and greedy is definitely among them but typically just a tiny part of the equation. The biggest thing is certified vendors. The military/government is incredibly strict with who they’ll contract with. Which means the supply is incredibly limited on many things, which in turn means that companies will ratchet up prices a crazy amount in part to deal with the goofy standards that the government requires on their goods but also because they know the demand far outweighs the supply.
There is also the burden of time. The US government drags their feet an INSANE amount on projects. It scales with size as well. The larger the project the slower things move almost every time. It very frequently gets to a point where they need stuff done right now because they waited too long and will pay pretty much any price to do it.
There is also the fact that the military is operating with a budget chalk full of “fuck you money.” In short, money is immaterial. Half the time they don’t even look at the price, whatever it costs doesn’t matter, just get it done and get it done right.
My company marks up shit an insane amount and I know for a fact pretty much every other certified vendor is as well. I dunno about 8k% (lol) markup but honestly that doesn’t shock me. The prices I’ve seen are jaw dropping. And they pretty much never get negotiated or rejected.
It’s often the military’s own flowed down certification requirements that result in significantly higher costs
Probably because trying to fight the bullshit ends up costing more in the long run.
I mean… Just don’t pay and get planes from Airbus next time…
