When I hear about savings of $40 million by messing with something that WORKS and is pretty important to an aircraft (like an engine), for some reason I envision plane crashes and dead pilots.
Yet, the use of aftermarket parts, even simple SS bolts and nuts, on commercial airliners can result in multimillion fines to the airline rehab industry.
Sure, it makes lots of sense to be able to use aftermarket parts on much more highly sophisticated military jets to save a few quid, as long as the admiral is able to enjoy his $600 toilet seat! Not!
Not even the cost of one airplane that might be lost to say nothing of the crew member(s). Typical bureaucrat non think from people who know NOTHING about reality. Sort of like MacNamara during Vietnam running the war as a spreadsheet exercise.
I used to work for an aircraft engine manufacturer. In general, they don’t make their parts, they buy them from the lowest cost supplier that can produce the parts. They don’t come from the Magic Land of Perfect Quality as a rule, often they come from small businesses that have been making the same stuff the same way for years (because FAA regulations discourage change). The OEM’s will mark parts up as high as the market will bear as long as they have the monopoly - there’s no reason why aftermarket suppliers cannot make the same parts cheaper and better, and make money while saving customers money.
In the area of Defense Weaponry, $40 Mil is chump change. Moochelle has blown through much more than that on her jaunts around the globe.
Brings up incident of the Alaskan Airline Flight 261 and suspected Chinese knockoff inferior stabilizer carried in http://iraap.org/reports/alaska2.htm
Quoting: “Their technology and manufacturing standards AND their control/knowledge of downline product distribution, routing and handling is so precise the Chinese can in-build just the right amount of “defect” so these parts wipe out several years down the line; and specifically ONLY in those parts which end up in those planes which end up bought and operated by airline companies in the UNITED STATES!”
Now they get to not only knock off pets and kids but their guardians in military.
I get a bad feeling about this.