THE $600 TOILET SEAT              8-15-1997

We have all heard of the $600 toilet seat which goes in an
Air Force B1 bomber.  It is one of the classic examples of
government waste.

Why can't you just go down to the local lumber yard and
buy a toilet seat for $20?

The problem is that the $20 plastic toilet seat at Home Depot
doesn't meet specifications.  A plastic toilet seat is flamible.
If there is a fire aboard an airplane, you want the fixtures not
to fuel the flames.  Plastic is out.  Plastic burns.

How about a cast iron toilet seat?  Well, they are heavy.  In a
bomber every pound counts.  Heavy cast iron is out.

How about an aluminium toilet seat?  Well, aluminium is not very
strong.  An airplane can hit an air pocket with a 200 pound airman
sitting on the toilet seat.  So it has to be very strong.  The
solution is to use a special aluminium alloy made for aircraft.
But aircraft aluminium alloys are expensive.

Another problem is that you can't find toilet seats made of light
strong aluminium alloy at Home Depot.  They have to be specially
manufactured.

A third problem is you don't design an aircraft to fit around a
standard size toilet seat.  You put the bathroom in an odd corner
where it will fit.  To use ordinary size toilet seats in a B1
bomber would require billions of dollars in redisign work.
If you make the bathroom bigger, the fusalage sticks out more,
so you need bigger engines, new flight testing, etc.  Everything
changes.  A $600 toilet seat is much cheaper than a $10,000,000,000
airplane redisign.

Why does an aircraft alloy aluminium toilet seat cost $600 anyway?
It is the way it is made.  An Air Force bomber is a low production
run item.  Each part is custom machined from a block of metal.
A computer controlled machine cuts out each part from a block of
aluminium alloy.  A toilet seat is made the same way that a bracket
to hold on the engine is.  You put a billet of aluminium alloy in
the machine, type in the part number and wait.  Cut, cut, grind,
grind, and in an hour you have your part.

Can't the toilet seat be made cheaper?  Sure by making a million of
them instead of a thousand.  You have your computer cut a mold and
mold a million of them.  The molding machine costs a million bucks
but the cost per item is low.  That is how they make cars.

Problem is you still have to use high strength aluminium alloy.
If you could get the cost per toilet seat down to $100 each using
a molding machine, it would cost you $100,000,000 for your million
toilet seats.  Then you have to warehouse the things.  And you have
to keep track of them.  You have to count them.  You have to ship
them to where they are needed.  It is much cheaper to just mill
a single one when you need it.  There is no inventory costs.
Just key in the part number and an hour later you have your toilet
seat.

You could make a million B1 bombers to take advantage of mass
production.  You might cut the price in half, from half a billion
to a quarter billion each.  Your total cost is $250,000,000,000,000.
That is 250 trillion dollars.  That is the entire United States
budget for the next 100 years.  A $600 toilet seat is still the
cheapest way to go.

It does seem though that it should be possible to use a standard
airplane toilet seat like in a 747.  Are they stainless steel or
lighter aluminium alloy?  Every pound of payload is important in
a bomber.