$1.07 in model costs: GLM-5.3 Flash powers a site that reads FAA aircraft defect reports

henkvaness · x · 2026-08-31

Data journalist Henk van Ess spent two days and $1.07 in model costs building aircraftdefects.com: GLM-5.3 Flash (Zhipu's cheap model) live-reads FAA Service Difficulty Reports — mechanics' write-ups in trade shorthand — and explains what actually happened, queryable by airline, tail number, aircraft type, part, or system code, with time filtering and lead-finding drills.

As the author puts it: "This is what the price of building software looks like now."

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