[dublin]

The expensive part of composite aerostructures isn't making them, per se, it's the molds and tooling you have to build first, and you need a lot more of those when contours are constantly changing. (This isn't new though - continously changing contours have been the norm since the first high supersonic wasp-waisted "area rule" fighters and bombers appeared in the 50s and 60s.)

That said, I was working on B-2 aerostructures in the late 80s, and I can tell you that most all the parts on that plane have no symmetry in any direction other than centerline bilateral. My group figured we could save over $10 million each on a single B2 duct, if we could change the bizarre geometry to simplify the scary complex tooling it required. That was enough potential savings to provoke a design review, but the answer came back, "Nope. It has to be that way (we presumed for stealth). Go figure out how to build it..."