The $17,000 Oil Drip Pan - "Protecting us from Terrorists"
The NY Times has the brilliant and heartwarming story of Phoenix Products , which produces the leakproof drip pans that the Apache Helicopters need because, well, they have some oil drip issues. Being a helicopter, and one for the DoD at that, you'd expect stuff to be expensive. And that it costs $17,000, well, its possible right? I mean, we're not talking about something like the Plews Lubrimatic ($9.80), or Cox ($4.56). These are military drip pans, and are quite probably gold-plated or something. So yeah, $17,000, I'd buy that. Except, it turns out that there are peoples selling equivalent drip-pans to the DoD for $2,500 Bob Skillen [...] designs drip pans that his company sells to the military for a different helicopter, the UH-46, for about $2,500 per pan, or about one-eighth the price that his Kentucky competitor charges. The pans attach beneath the roof of the helicopter to catch leaking transmission fluid before it can seep into the cabin. “It’s no...