[gravescale]

Also each one probably also has its own fully traceable and auditable supply chain, with a record of every step, including who signed off on it, when and where, from the moment it entered the refinery, and the records are guaranteed to be kept available for decades, along with storage and maintenance of the tooling and capacity to make more at short notice indefinitely. Plus the costs of getting the contract sorted and the part specced and signed off on in the first place, amortised across the relatively small initial batch.

Presumably there for political protection as much as anything else: "Bushinggate topples Senator after it's revealed a Russian company supplied the titanium" or "Scandal of the aircraft parts Anerica has forgotten how to make".

[konfusinomicon]

damn that putin! with his gnarled tendril hands all up in big titanium!

[gravescale]

Funnily enough, although the SR-71 was largely made of Soviet titanium, Russia's not a major producer now (Ukraine is now a relatively minor one, perhaps it was from there). But they got out in front of that one post-declassification with the rather fun spin "har har, they thought we wanted it for pizza ovens and we put it in a spy plane to fly over their country, the absolute rubes".