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EDS "Airplane"

AFallGuy4u · 1.1M views · 2007-10-08 · 1:01

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Overview

A short EDS television commercial that shows an airplane being built while it is in flight. It is an early use of the 'building the plane as it flies' metaphor.

On Hacker News

HN mentions it mainly as the origin of the phrase about rebuilding a plane mid-flight, usually applied to software projects.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2010–2024

Topics

Arts & entertainment (other)Software practice, open source & careers
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edscommercialmetaphorsoftware projects

What people said

01HNNWZ0MV43FF · 2024-06 · Reference

For curious readers, the "building a plane as it flies" metaphor dates back to at least 2000, to these commercials for EDS: [VIDEO] I thought it was IBM but I was quite mistaken, so good thing I looked it up lol

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whatusername · 2010-07 · Criticism

[VIDEO] Why build them first. // I've never understood that ad - it always screams "we don't take proper care" to me..

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cubicle67 · 2010-05 · Joke / meme

It's really hard to rebuild a plane while in flight Obviously these people didn't know that [VIDEO] [Disclaimer - I used to work for them]

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Sources

Video by AFallGuy4u, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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