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A 153-page research (SM thesis) titled Valuation Techniques for Commercial Aircraft Program Design by Jacob Markish at MIT breaks down the valuation of the design of commercial aircraft.

  The non-recurring (development) cost of a wing is broken down into engineering, manufacture engineering (ME), tool design, tool fabrication, and support.

For the wing (and the other parts), it's a dollar value per pound.

The engineering of a wing (clean slate) costs \$7,093 per pound. The total for the wing is $17,731 (per pound). If it is not a clean slate design, say the DC-10 / MD-11 example, then it's 20% of the engineering, 5% of the tool design/fabrication, 50% of the ME and support.

Seeing how the table below shows how expensive the empennage and systems are, and with the major changes done to those areas on the MD-11, one can see why they went this way.

Note: The thesis arrives at a correlation between weight and cost based on publicly available figures, however it does remain a simplification. Regarding a comment about the weight of composites vs. metals: a composite airliner is generally not lighter.

A 2002 MIT research^[1] arrived at a correlation between weight and cost based on publicly available figures. The non-recurring (development) cost of a wing is broken down into:

• engineering
• manufacture engineering (ME)
• tool design
• tool fabrication
• support

The engineering of a wing (clean slate) costs \$7,093 per pound. The total for the wing is \$17,731 (per pound). If it is not a clean slate design, say the DC-10 / MD-11 example, then it's 20% of the engineering, 5% of the tool design/fabrication, and 50% of the ME and support.

Applying to MD-11 and MD-90

	Engineering	ME	Tool Design	Tool Fab	Support	Totals
	40.0%	10.0%	10.5%	34.8%	4.7%	100.0%
Wing	\$7,093	\$1,773	\$1,862	\$6,171	\$833	\$17,731
Empennage	\$20,862	\$5,216	\$5,476	\$18,150	\$2,451	\$52,156
Fuselage	\$12,837	\$3,209	\$3,370	\$11,169	\$1,508	\$32,093
Landing Gear	\$999	\$250	\$262	\$869	\$117	\$2,499
Installed Engines	\$3,477	\$869	\$913	\$3,025	\$408	\$8,691
Systems	\$13,723	\$3,431	\$3,602	\$11,939	\$1,612	\$34,307
Payloads	\$4,305	\$1,076	\$1,130	\$3,746	\$506	\$10,763

Seeing how the table above shows how expensive the empennage and systems are, and with the major changes done to those areas on the MD-11, one can see why they went this way.

(Regarding a comment about the weight of composites vs. metals: a composite airliner is generally not lighter.)

1: Markish, Jacob. Valuation techniques for commercial aircraft program design. Diss. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002.

This is what I could find, but perhaps there are other methods as well.

A 153-page research (SM thesis) titled Valuation Techniques for Commercial Aircraft Program Design by Jacob Markish at MIT breaks down the valuation of the design of commercial aircraft.

The non-recurring (development) cost of a wing is broken down into engineering, manufacture engineering (ME), tool design, tool fabrication, and support.

For the wing (and the other parts), it's a dollar value per pound.

The engineering of a wing (clean slate) costs \$7,093 per pound. The total for the wing is $17,731 (per pound). If it is not a clean slate design, say the DC-10 / MD-11 example, then it's 20% of the engineering, 5% of the tool design/fabrication, 50% of the ME and support.

The heaviest (OEW) MD-11 weighs 291,120 lb. With the wing 23% of that based on the research, and accounting for inflation (from the year 2000), the total development cost would have been $783 million (in 1987) for the wing if MDC had went with a new design.

MDC spent less than that for the whole "engineering, tools and flight testing," a cool \$700 million. Plus "$2.5 billion in inventory for initial production." (latimes.com, 1990)

Based on this method, the value is $328 million (in 1996 dollars) to redesign the MD-90 wing (full value, not just engineering).

Seeing how the table below shows how expensive the empennage and systems are, and with the major changes done to those areas on the MD-11, one can see why they went this way.

Note: The thesis arrives at a correlation between weight and cost based on publicly available figures, however it does remain a simplification. Regarding a comment about the weight of composites vs. metal: a composite airliner is generally not lighter.

This is what I could find, but perhaps there are other methods as well.

A 153-page research (SM thesis) titled Valuation Techniques for Commercial Aircraft Program Design by Jacob Markish at MIT breaks down the valuation of the design of commercial aircraft.

The non-recurring (development) cost of a wing is broken down into engineering, manufacture engineering (ME), tool design, tool fabrication, and support.

For the wing (and the other parts), it's a dollar value per pound.

The engineering of a wing (clean slate) costs \$7,093 per pound. The total for the wing is $17,731 (per pound). If it is not a clean slate design, say the DC-10 / MD-11 example, then it's 20% of the engineering, 5% of the tool design/fabrication, 50% of the ME and support.

The heaviest (OEW) MD-11 weighs 291,120 lb. With the wing 23% of that based on the research, and accounting for inflation (from the year 2000), the total development cost would have been $783 million (in 1987) for the wing if MDC had went with a new design.

MDC spent less than that for the whole "engineering, tools and flight testing," a cool \$700 million. Plus "$2.5 billion in inventory for initial production." (latimes.com, 1990)

Based on this method, the value is $328 million (in 1996 dollars) to redesign the MD-90 wing (full value, not just engineering).

Seeing how the table below shows how expensive the empennage and systems are, and with the major changes done to those areas on the MD-11, one can see why they went this way.

Note: The thesis arrives at a correlation between weight and cost based on publicly available figures, however it does remain a simplification. Regarding a comment about the weight of composites vs. metals: a composite airliner is generally not lighter.

This is what I could find, but perhaps there are other methods as well.

A 153-page research (SM thesis) titled Valuation Techniques for Commercial Aircraft Program Design by Jacob Markish at MIT breaks down the valuation of the design of commercial aircraft.

The non-recurring (development) cost of a wing is broken down into engineering, manufacture engineering (ME), tool design, tool fabrication, and support.

For the wing (and the other parts), it's a dollar value per pound.

The engineering of a wing (clean slate) costs \$7,093 per pound. The total for the wing is $17,731 (per pound). If it is not a clean slate design, say the DC-10 / MD-11 example, then it's 20% of the engineering, 5% of the tool design/fabrication, 50% of the ME and support.

The heaviest (OEW) MD-11 weighs 291,120 lb. With the wing 23% of that based on the research, and accounting for inflation, the total development cost would have been $783 million (1987) for the wing if MDC had went with a new design.

MDC spent less than that for the whole "engineering, tools and flight testing," a cool \$700 million. Plus "$2.5 billion in inventory for initial production." (latimes.com, 1990)

Based on this method, the value is $328 million (in 1996 dollars) to redesign the MD-90 wing (full value, not just engineering).

Seeing how the table below shows how expensive the empennage and systems are, and with the major changes done to those areas on the MD-11, one can see why they went this way.

This is what I could find, but perhaps there are other methods as well.

A 153-page research (SM thesis) titled Valuation Techniques for Commercial Aircraft Program Design by Jacob Markish at MIT breaks down the valuation of the design of commercial aircraft.

The non-recurring (development) cost of a wing is broken down into engineering, manufacture engineering (ME), tool design, tool fabrication, and support.

For the wing (and the other parts), it's a dollar value per pound.

The engineering of a wing (clean slate) costs \$7,093 per pound. The total for the wing is $17,731 (per pound). If it is not a clean slate design, say the DC-10 / MD-11 example, then it's 20% of the engineering, 5% of the tool design/fabrication, 50% of the ME and support.

The heaviest (OEW) MD-11 weighs 291,120 lb. With the wing 23% of that based on the research, and accounting for inflation (from the year 2000), the total development cost would have been $783 million (in 1987) for the wing if MDC had went with a new design.

MDC spent less than that for the whole "engineering, tools and flight testing," a cool \$700 million. Plus "$2.5 billion in inventory for initial production." (latimes.com, 1990)

Based on this method, the value is $328 million (in 1996 dollars) to redesign the MD-90 wing (full value, not just engineering).

Seeing how the table below shows how expensive the empennage and systems are, and with the major changes done to those areas on the MD-11, one can see why they went this way.

Note: The thesis arrives at a correlation between weight and cost based on publicly available figures, however it does remain a simplification. Regarding a comment about the weight of composites vs. metal: a composite airliner is generally not lighter.