Comment by XorNot
5 hours ago
It happens every now and again on here: someone comes up with like a 2% improvement in aerodynamics, and people are unimpressed. Meanwhile airlines are basically scrambling to get it rolled into their next-gen purchases because it's the biggest improvement in costs in a decade.
A 2% improvement that only costs 2% more to manufacture, sure.
A 2% improvement that costs 200% more to manufacture would be nonsensical to seriously propose.
You cannot possibly know that without knowing the operational lifetime of a plane and it's expected return. An airline doesn't buy a plane planning to break even on the purchase cost, for example.
Which basically proves my original point.
Do you not understand what the word manufacture means?
It literally doesn’t matter what the “operational lifetime” or “expected return” is if it costs 200% more to manufacture for only 2% improvements.
It won’t ever get far enough in the design process for it to even be an issue.
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