From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Tue Jul 18 2000 - 09:52:27 MDT
"Michael S. Lorrey" wrote:
>
> John Clark wrote:
> >
> > Spike Jones <spike66@ibm.net> Wrote:
> >
> > >The famous $x00 hammer that started the meme that the government was being
> > >wasteful, etc, was a modal hammer, [...] has accelerometers mounted on it to measure
> > >resonances and vibration modes.
> >
> > What about the $1500 toilet seat, did it have accelerometers mounted on it to measure
> > resonances and vibration modes too?
>
> It had to undergo extensive g-force testing to ensure that it would not
> flop around and break under extensive maneuvering, and we bought fewer
> of those than of the hammers...
I can also tell you about the $500 light bulb. Being a spark chaser on fighters,
I can tell you a minimum of 25% of your time is spent replacing expired light
bulbs, from the thousand or so in the cockpit, to the landing lights, to the
wingtip navigation lights, to the EL formation lights, to the tail lights. Light
bulbs can die, short, or simply explode on you. Whole aircraft have been lost
due to light bulb failures (at a cost of $15-100 million per plane). Civilian
light bulbs just don't cut it, and engineering lights that operate twice as long
or more than their predecessors saves millions of dollars more in labor and
saved planes than it costs to engineer better bulbs. This is how I got into
efficient lighting development after the Air Force.
Mike Lorrey
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