Why does it cost so much to fly America's jets?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 มิ.ย. 2024
- The United States military operates some of the most expensive aircraft in history, but how much do these exotic platforms actually cost to operate per hour... And just as importantly, what goes into those hourly operating cost figures?
Let's talk about it.
📱 Follow Sandboxx News on social
Twitter: / sandboxxnews
Instagram: / sandboxxnews
Facebook: / sandboxxnews
TikTok: / sandboxxnews
📱 Follow Alex Hollings on social
Twitter: / alexhollings52
Instagram: / alexhollings52
Facebook: / alexhollings. .
TikTok: www.tiktok.com/alexhollings52
Citations:
www.businessinsider.com/price...
www.cape.osd.mil/files/OS_Gui...
www.popularmechanics.com/mili...
www.investors.com/research/f3...
apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA420...
I worked at an FBO for a few years and we had all sorts of military planes come by. The one that stuck out the most was the as 4 A-10s that came all the way from Wisconsin because the training course in Florida was way closer than theirs so it was worth it for them to fly the entire crew to Florida for a week to practice. We would fill them up twice a day and each jet had 3-4 mechanics. The speed at which the a-10 could take fuel was insane. It was so fast to fill them up and turn them around. The pilots promised they would give us all a shell from the gau but they said they weren’t able to get them. It was like ahhh mannnn.
I know this is an Air Force video but it brings back a lecture I attended in the Army. He said "The most expensive Army in the world is the one that loses" I think we should thankfully pay the money!
Could not agree more. Ret. Msgt. USAF
It’s literally just accounting 101. But the nuance that you bring to the explanation is incalculably better!
Most people do not understand Burdened Costs. You had a good explanation, as you always do.
Ok still doesnt explain why we dont have universal health care
@@billhanna2148 Because American healthcare quality and technology is what the entire world aspires to have.
And universal healthcare sucks.
The incentive are all wrong. Money is the best motivator to get brilliant people to risk everything on new practices or procedures after a decade or more and a half million dollars in debt.
If you cut them off and pay them the same as their average patient, as that would be required to make healthcare substantially cheaper, then the best doctors will find something better to do.
That is why.
@@TheJustinJ your dilutions speaks volumes...'Merikan health insurance is a known world obscenity.. most expensive and least effective. Stick shit you know
Swiss, German, Austrian++ have it still good treatment.
I mean even the WHO etc. find Muricas way bit of you pay more and get less than alsmost every European , Japanese, Singapur ++ citizen@@TheJustinJ
Not much to do with the Military spending, i mean as a German, Bismarck 1883 introduced it in Germany, we had it in WW1, WW2, Cold War, even with alot of Military spending, in Germany its mandatory to have an Health Insurence (+ others like car insurance if you have a care)
Even Saudis have a government health Insurence.
Many of us think Americans dont really understand the concept and still biased from older Movie & that bad ecsample of NHS (Britains Public Health care system thats one of the bader ones in Europe)
Kraut and many others also made good Video about it like "What Americans dont understand about Public Healthcare:Public Healthcare, or as Americans call it: Social Healthcare, is an issue of contention almost every single U.S election. And the 2020 presidential elections won't be any different. Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Elisabeth Warren, and Bill de Blasio already voiced their support during Democratic primaries. However, what every election cycle in the United States also has in common is that the candidates who support public healthcare never actually present any plans for how the system would work or what it would even look like. Additionally, many American advocates of public healthcare don't seem to know much about the social sacrifices, reforms and additional health measures that come with public healthcare to ensure a healthy society. In this video that will be discussed and several American misconceptions about public healthcare will be talked about"
+ Thats kind of distopian for some years more and more Healthcare Tourist come from the Us to Spain, Germany++ since the flight and like 80€ that they have to pay in hospital, doctor (some times up to 200-400€) is still cheaper
@@billhanna2148
This makes SO much more sense now. I always wondered why the per hour cost was so high.
I love how this comes down to planning and readiness logistics again.
Like America realized in WW2 it came down to logistics. Then those veterans and planners went back to corporations and businesses and applied that logistical mindset. The end result is American businesses reshaped the world with a logistical mindset and capability that has never existed in the history if the world. We pursued technologies like computers and the internet and GPS to make logistics ever easier.
I remember seeing a survey once of modern (this was about 15 or so years ago) generals and who they thought the greatest general in history was; the top 10 had all the usual names and one person I had never heard of, the British 16th/17th century general John Churchill - and he was not there for his direction of battles on the day (although he did good at that), his praise was almost all for his logistics, and getting men fed and armed and in the right place.
Yeah they also bailed the parasitic aspect to logistics. Borrow from Peter to pay Paul, fudging numbers, etc, all the things we see happening in the financial and asset markets of today. artificial scarcity, supply shock, inflated demand, etc.
A wonderful different perspective that would never have occured to me. Seeing the big picture is something Alex does that keeps me coming back to Sandboxx.
The US Army just chose General Dynamics and Rheinmetall as finalists for the 4000 Bradley replacement IFVs.
Could you do a Firepower series video about this program, the two finalists and the other three that dropped out. Or more generally the current state of IFVs (Bradley, CV90, Puma, Lynx) and their most likely future. Maybe even including anti air IFVs like some CV90 variants and SkyRanger.
A separate accounting category might be helpful in comparing platforms: Marginal cost per hour. That is the actual operating cost to fly the plane on the next flight. Replacement and overhaul costs of major components would be amortized in, but the figure would would include only consumables and maintenance. It would also be a useful tool to “sell” products to the public without throwing everyone into a conniption about “fraud, waste, and abuse.” They need to think about marketing to those of us who are paying the bills.
If they're going to sell these things to the public, they should sell the whole package. If they show me a smaller number that's just that marginal cost you talked about, and then the Pentagon budgets and bills Congress for this much larger number that includes the entire logistics train, people are still going to believe they've been lied to. The public needs to know what we just watched. That's full disclosure.
@@kma3647Agreed, only if Americans were educated. You have to realise that you have millions of uneducated simpletons with a sketchy mastery of basic primary school math and ask all of the *wrong* questions (ie. Lack critical thinking skills and will believe they’re being lied to regardless…🙄🤦🏼♂️). Focus on funding your abysmal educational system and introduce the idea of critical thinking first?! Just sayin’!
@@kma3647 I do not disagree. Transparency is critical, and that’s why I made the recommendation that I did. I recommended an additional metric that people who understand operations will find more useful than the combined metrics alone.
When is the last time you saw a DoD aircraft program truly be help up by public opinion before the airframe went into service?
They don't need to sell this to the people. They only need to sell it to the politicians who all seem to be mathematically and economically illiterate.
My guess is the combination of:
- material logistic supply
- maintenance
- fuel
- soldier pay
- mission planning & support
This was a fantastic video on the logistics for military aircraft (added after the video). Thanks for your hard work!
Another great video from the best aviation journalist on the Internet!
3:00 Even in General Aviation with Cessnas, we consider total aircraft operational cost to be around 5x fuel cost.
18,000lb of fuel / 6-2/3lb per gallon is 2,700gal.
Into 2.5 hours is 1,080 gallons an hour. $6 per gallon for Jet-A equivalent, times 5 is 30. 30x 1,080 is $32,400 per hour.
It was a sad day when they retired the F-14. It was such a powerful and effective aircraft. But the man hours it took for every flight hour became astronomical over time and the sea water wreaked havoc on the plane. And it became to expensive and time consuming to keep each airframe in the sky. We have such a huge fleet that the money better not dry up.
This is the BIGGEST mistake the US Air force and Navy also Congress made, to be replaced by the less powerful F18 bluntnet which can't compete with the Tomcat if it weren't for those hi tech electronics.
@@stuartemmanuel3735 high tech electronics or not, the Super Hornet could still never compete with the Tomcat or especially Super Tomcat. Had the Cats been upgraded with AESA and other upgrades, the USN wouldn’t find itself in the predicament it is in now with Chinese and Russia bombers and missiles posing enormous threats to our entire super carrier fleets in the pacific
About 25% of all F-14 operated by the US were lost due to accidents and malfunctions. For reference, it's 30% for F-104 in Luftwaffe's service.
The F-14 was a beast and engineering marvel. But it was not "effective" if you count the fact they had to have TWO ready to go for each ONE planned on the mission.
You cant fight a war with 50% chance of failure to launch because broken junk that takes 40 man hours to fix 1 air hour or abuse.
@@jordanmascarenhas7974 China actually relies on anti-ship ballistic missiles to counter US carriers, less so with bombers. This is not something fighters can deal with, not even the Super Tomcat. And it's a misconception that F-14 has a lot of combat radius, it's actually comparable to F-15E, or about 1400 km, and that's without carrying any Phoenixes. Also, with fuel tanks and Phoenix, even its fastest flight profile doesn't exceed Mach 1.5.
An excellent presentation. I never would have considered all of the associated costs.
well that's a hell of a lot more expenses going towards a flight hour calculation than i would have imagined. ignorant me figures fuel, maintenance, personnel.
Awesome video. This does a really good job at explaining things in a way that is digestible
As a layman, I'd be interested in having an episode like this about went the B-52 continues to receive life extensions.
Detailing things like what it is that it offers over the other US bombers.
What a deal....We thank you Alex🇺🇸
Flightline ops are intense. Great video
fantastic breakdown. i had some idea of operating costs but not nearly big enough
Still another awesome and very informative video. 👍
holy shit!thanks op..good info,learned something today!
Owe you more then this but short for now. Keep up the great work...🎉
Living in close proximity to Dyess AFB and hearing B-1s roar to life several times a week, I often wonder at the expenditures related to that aspect of freedom. As an average, middle-class American, I realize that I could live quite comfortably on the outlay every time I hear those GE 102s fire up, but I know in my heart of hearts that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and it’s a price worth paying.
You forgot one essential component; If the nominal service life for the F-35A airframe is 8000 flight hours, at a unit price of 80 mm USD, that accounts for the first 10.000 USD/flight hr. Sometimes people forget the correlation between unit cost and cost pr flight hours. It’s also misleading due to effective double accounting, as the initial investment in hardware and infrastructure should be accounted as a sunk cost, and only variable costs calculated into the cost pr. flight hour. Different accounting methods are used by governments and military branches around the world, making it difficult to compare numbers. - You should make a longer, more in-depth analysis to the subject.
I doubt the procurement cost is included in the flight hour cost!
Its usually better to spend a little more making sure the wings won't fall off than losing a pilot on takeoff because metal fatigue cracks weren't identified.
Somewhat related, you might want to look up the concept of "Shutdown Point" in microeconomics. The key takeaway is that, even if something looks like it is losing money - is stupidly expensive - you can "lose money" on each extra thing produced, but it can still make sense to keep making more.
It used to cost $45,000 for F22, meaning they are going up!
F-16C/D are about $27,000, Harrier is about $39,000, A-10 is about $22,000, F/A-18A-D are at a whopping $50,000 all due to its age. Super Hornet is at about $30,000, Growler is about $27,000 (cheaper because it's newer). F-35A/B/C averaged at around $42,000, but that's all variants and no breakdown. F-22 costs about $85,000. F-15C/D are approaching $40,000, largely due to its age. F-15E is about $33,000, it's also getting old. There isn't enough data for F-15EX yet, but they expect it to be about $28,000.
My data is different because I use Government Accountability Office's 2022 report. No fighters, not even A-10, are below $20,000 in that report.
Great video
The US Air Force & Navy’s pre occupation with reducing the number of different fighter/attack platforms to simply the logistics, maintenance & training. Unfortunately you end up retiring specialised aircraft and replacing them with multi purpose platforms. Reducing platform types some things also get lost in the shuffle, like long range when the F14 was retired, a robust airframe when the A10 will be retired. Hopefully the F35 cost per flight hour will keep dropping as this multi purpose platform is complex for some missions.
Raptor F22 cost a lot to fly because there isn't a facility to repair them. They disassembled the factory lines.. F35 still have active production so there is an assembly line. .
But they made spares, right? Aren’t the production lines more about the entire plane?
@@trumptookthevaccine1679The spares are likely available in smaller numbers
@@jeffbenton6183replacement parts are still made for consumables. You cant get an f22 wing, but you can get an engine, radar bits, or landing gear parts
Worth noting that the engineers place higher priority on performance than ease or expense of maintenance in the tradeoffs encountered during aircraft design
A video about the AAS / FARA (armed scout helicopter) program would be cool. Sikorsky has the S-97 Raider compete with the Bell+Textron 360 Invictus.
The Raider has troop capacity while the Invictus does not, but that gives the Invictus better stealth properties, just like the Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche had. Not sure why Sikorsky abandoned that design, as they first came up with it. Just to push a common scout and transport design when they already lost the Blackhawk transport replacement to the Bell V280 Valor?
A couple of other support roles vital to safety of flight are ATC and weather. And Base Ops. I doubt those figures are added into it until things go bad and a plane crashes due to low level windshear, cross winds, a micoburst, or lightning strike.😮
The most cost efficient peace time army is the second best. When it gets real, it's the most expensive.
In private (and public) business, the depreciation of capital is a huge cost, as are the replacement costs... Do those figure into the cost per flight hour vis. military aircraft?
Yes
Wow!!just wow😁👍🤗
I've been curious about this for a while but it left me with more questions. How does it work out with fixed VS variable costs? I realize the total cost will go up the more you fly them but the cost per hour would probably come down the more hours flown... But I'm not sure now. For example, if you take the total yearly expenditure and only flew one hour, the cost would be insane. Can you please do a follow up on this.
This is very important to know...
And a lot people wonder why a Russia or China military is or will struggle, you can’t just have people fighting for you that know what they are doing. What happens when run out of ammo, or if you radio breaks from not servicing it or you can’t evacuate a casualty. Your support units and equipment has to be best of the best for your military to run like well oiled machine, and if just one those are out of whack. Well it can through the whole thing out of whack. That is what sets the US apart from other nations, we aren’t just good at fighting/infantry or have beat weapons. We have the best support team in the world! Being a 15-Tango(Black Hawk Mechanic) in the Army, I saw and experienced it first hand.
Underestimate N.Korea and Russia all You want. Whatever You think, it will always be worse.
But don't underestimate china. Whatever You think, they will be 10x better now, and 100x better in ten years.
So basically everything but the Air Force Band. 😊
'Readiness Rate' and 'cost per flight hour' are loosely related as well.
You can get the fl/hr cost down just by reducing your readiness rate target. Or conversely, you can get your readiness rate up by spiking your fl/hr cost.
Some nations are happy with a 30 or 40% readiness rate, and their fl/hr cost is considerably lower as a result. And that kinda skews which planes cost how much to operate. Generally the US targets a considerably higher readiness rate than many other first world countries ...and it's not free.
Youre 100 percent on target here, and for most countries 30 percent is honestly fine. If we assume the uk has 50 f35s and a 30 percent readiness rate, thats 16 f35s ready to go. 16 f35s is more than enough to buy the uk time for the rest of the fleet to be made ready and for the us to kick in and jump to their defense. Ally response is a major part of many foreign partners defense strategy, where the us plans to fight two major wars by themselves.
@@Typexviiib I think germany probably has the trophy for most lackluster readiness rates. :P
On the F-35, the US was targeting 30,000/hr at 80% readiness. Which would have been flat-out amazing. Few jets achieve 80%. But instead they're more like 70% at 35,000/hr. Which is more average. Still impressive though with how much tech is packed into it. The new diagnostics software is helping.
@@kathrynck gotta agree again. I do wonder how much of germanys readiness rates are a result of the germans being overly anal about maintenance, but i really have nothing to back that up with. Maybe the Bundeswehr is just woefully understaffed or under financed.
The real kick in the teeth with the f35 rates is that there was absolutely nothing done to calculate an 80 percent readiness rate. It was always just a “wouldnt it be nice”. Now people use its readiness rate against it, even though its comparable (or even slightly better) than most of its peers performing the same jobs. I know the b and c have significantly lower readiness rates than the a, and tend to drag the average down.
@@Typexviiib under-funded mainly, which i guess is also understaffed. they lean really heavily on 'outside support will fix everything' hehe. ie: cheaping out.
Well, there's a bit done to make it easier to work on. A limited number of screw/bolt sizes & types, to make a maintenance toolkit smaller. More quick-access panels. And an in-flight systems diagnostics computer. but yeah, it was always a "fingers crossed" sort of goal. It's still a work in progress, 32,000 at like 65% ready or 36,000 at 70+% ready is pretty good though really. A bit more than the F-15. Less than the F-14. WAAAAY less than the F-22. F-22's are like 80,000 for 50% ready.
Strategic bombers are always extra pricey, cuz nuclear bombers get lots of extra attention (and security) ;)
Navy planes are high maintenance in general. Salt spray + "impact"-landings... they're just hard on their toys ;)
The B... STOVL is just complicated :P
Compared to F-14 or AV-8... the C and B don't look bad at all on maintenance.
Its combination of various factors
The actual is metric man hours per flight hour. For every flight hour, you need so many hours of maintenance
After every flight, aircraft have to checked and numbers dialed in
Parts have to be replaced after so many hours
Others have to be inspected to see if they have to be replaced
At certain points, certain inspections have to done on the airframe and lastly when the aircraft reaches a certain amount of flight hours, the manufacturer has to perform work so it operate for x amount of flights till next major inspection
As far readiness, its depends on the mission
The radar can be down but the aircraft can still fly for missions dont that require it
You dont need the gun or targeting pod operational when you are doing monthly qualifications
Navy pilots practice touch and gos on land to simulate carrier landings
It would be nice if you could keep all aircraft 100 percent but thats not realistic for several reasons which is why goals reasonable set
80-90 ish ,
There was famous report by DW that only 4 of Germany's 128 Eurofighters were fully operational
but thats not account for various factors
I wanted to hear about the F-15 variants
Two questions:
What happened to the magazine
What books would you recommend for highly technical reading, and combat storytelling on aircraft like the F-35?
You forgot the F-15 EX which likely is around $25,000. pe hour with no stealth coating to maintain.
As a taxpayer this video is a bit depressing but then even maintaining my firearms is expensive. Cleaning is not costly but the ammo cost has risen horribly in the past 5 years. And then there are "upgrade" parts. For example my $800. 9 mm RUGER PC chassis carbine has had many internal parts (extractors, springs, safety, etc. and external parts (sights, mag release, muzzle brake, etc.) added or replaced to make it a much better carbine, to the tune of another $600. insulting a $300.+ circle/dot sight.
So yeah, weapons are expensive just to buy, then maintaining and upgrading them is VERY expensive. And then training = ammo expenditure and barrel wear. Aaararrrggghhh! Did I mention competition? That's another can of $$$$.
Logistics is the Queen on the Chess Board. Right people, right parts, right weapons. Right ammo, right shelters.+. That is why the Bee 🐝 ~Ouch is the baddest ass pice on the board.😉.
*_EXTREMELY_* disappointed that you didn't mention the manufacturer's over-charging for parts. I'm not talking about (perhaps mythical) "$12,000 hammers / toilet seats" .. I'm talking about *_KNOWN_* and provable things like $12,000 gaskets or oil filters. 60 Minutes did a very good deep dive on it not too long ago. It's truly disgusting, the greed of these companies, and it adds a huge and completely unnecessary cost to the maintenance of all our military gear.
This nation puts safety first, then mission capable...in the time of war most of that gets thrown out the window as time to incapacitating the enemy takes presidence
So it sounds like a lot of what I would have considered to be the Air Force's "Administration" category is instead worked into the budget by prorating it into the flight hours of particular planes. My question is, how much of the Air Force's central administration budget is NOT covered under these costs per flight hour?
Why is the B-1b so expensive? I'm surprised it's more than the B-2 with the B-2's RAM maintenance and AC hangars etc.
It’s largely due to age! I had the chance to tour the GE facility that keeps old equipment around just to build small batches of components for the B-1B. The price tag on parts ends up reflecting not just the cost of production, but the cost of having old equipment in the factory sitting idle the rest of the year, etc.
@@SandboxxAppthat makes sense. Sweeping wings and the ability to go supersonic adds cost as well. I wouldn't be surprised if they coat it with some RAM as well much like the F-16.
By the time the US Navy was replacing EA-6s with EA-18s, VAQs often had to get specific parts custom made. While the Prowlers gained a few parts and systems from the retired F-14s, most components had to be ordered and tailor made, even panels and outer sections of skin. I imagine the Bone has issues with the Variable geometry wings as did the F-14.
If Alex is using the GAO's figures, the question is why the per hour costs for the B1 B has increased from $63,000 in 2019 to $173,000 in 2022. Any explanations?
@@SandboxxAppyep, they were used a lot in iraq and afghnistsnfor CAS among other missions.
Descent holiday savings there but can we do better? Alex if you can match Blanco’s rates of $21K/hr, you have my business sir. Let’s go with the F-16 and set it up for this Friday. Call it an 8 o’clock pickup and I’d like to reserve it for 0.15 hours. Keep the card on file and I’ll return her just as clean as she was. 😂
A per mission hourly cost is far cheaper for the F-35 than for legacy aircraft as a 4 ship mission of the F-35 replaces a 24 plane support for the same mission when flown with 4-4.5 gen fighter/attack craft.
And military maintenance and ready ness personnel work at cheap rates compared to civilians? But it's all internal spending for the most part. Keeps the economy rolling.
3 Seconds into the video I pause it. I then surmise that the answer to the question in the video name is MAINTENANCE. Maybe I will find out that I'm wrong or right?
But why is maintenance expensive?
Because the shit has to work
I’m going to guess its a lot more than just maintenance before watching this video
You forgot about fuel.
Maintenance and fuel!
@@trumptookthevaccine1679but why does shit have to work?
Is there a comparison to any adversary aircraft?
Total cost per hour for a Cessna 172 is roughly $150 per hour. You just cannot compare cost per hour for a military aircraft, way too many variables. How many people are needed for just to get a military aircraft airborne, or even more have one land and have to get airborne as soon as possible. And you have to pay all those people. Just fuel alone for a F-35 runs around 1,250 gallons per flight hour, that's about $8,000 dollars in fuel per hour. And if you really want to add to the cost per hour, have the aircraft fly off and land on a ship.
I understand that the per hour costs are significantly lower in Russia!
How about explaining the cost of naval carrier aircraft costs, too.
F16 pilots HATE calling it the Fighting Falcon. They prefer Viper.
Nice introduction
Please do a video on underground nuclear testing!
These costs in my opinion are always suspect. I would reference the online article from The Nation "Only the Pentagon could spend $640 on a toilet seat" from April 2016 by William Hartung. In my opinion the USA should always provide its military personnel with the best pay, training, and equipment to accomplish the mission. It has never been able to eliminate all of the waste and added costs that defense contractors pad to their bill. There should never be a $600 plus toilet seat, a $7,600 coffee maker etc. The costs to operate an F35 per hour at $33,000, or even the older but tried and true F16 at $22,000 still seems excessive compared to Sweden's Gripen which is operating at a little over $4,000 an hour. I think the Pentagon and the nation would fare better to continuously compare costs and even to train with corporations like SAAB to learn how they keeps costs down.
Mission readiness is not to be confused with doggy, or reverse cowgirl readiness
TLDR: R&D and Maintenance. Also because they actually perform as advertised.
Sorry if I missed it, but where does the F-15 sit in that list?
Well hell,do they add in the cost of the military bases too? And the cost of personnel on the base? How about the hundreds of foreign bases we have around the world?
me looking at the local gas prices... i get it.
>6. Logistics
Now that's not accurate. It should be "Transport and Transportation costs".
I say this because this ENTIRE topic is all about logistics.
1-6 I would think is all overhead, I think that’s a really high number per hour, what about when that jet isn’t flying and no one is working on the said jet. I mean, just seems like a lot of money funded for said platform, per hour, but really when it comes to americas Military a price or number really shouldn’t matter.
What about the F-15 and F-18 that make up a huge fraction of our current and future fleet? The F-15EX, for example, has a designed lifetime of 20,000 flight hours, vastly more than other planes.
F-15C/D are approaching $40,000, largely due to its age. F-15E is about $33,000, it's also getting old. There isn't enough data for F-15EX yet, but they expect it to be about $28,000.
F-16C/D are about $27,000, Harrier is about $39,000, A-10 is about $22,000, F/A-18A-D are at a whopping $50,000 all due to its age. Super Hornet is at about $30,000, Growler is about $27,000 (cheaper because it's newer). F-35A/B/C averaged at around $42,000, but that's all variants and no breakdown. F-22 is about $85,000.
My data is different because I use Government Accountability Office's 2022 report. No fighters, not even A-10, are below $20,000 in that report.
@@solomonofakkad1927 Multiply fuel use in gallons by cost per gallon, times five, gets you close in all areas of aviation from ultralight to b-52 bombers.
Because they work.
that's not ''the cost of flying an airplane'' [any airplane]... that's the cost of having ''Air Power'' (Force) Alex...
This is all true. So, what you're saying is, I should start billing people?
They're going to be so annoyed.
At the end of the day it all comes down to mission readiness
Fixed cost are a major accounting trouble. Let's say the current crisis widens and the US essentially manages to double flight hours on the same infrastructure and do so over a long time. It will seem as if the flight-hour costs have collapsed, but that's just because the fixed costs are more widely spread. I think this became particularly problematic the other way around for some European countries. As their sorties dropped, the cost per sorty surged and programs got cancelled for three wrong reasons. Firstly the one we are talking about and secondly, the fact that most politicians are good with words but really bad with numbers. The third reasons is that they are sheep who believe wolfs are vegeterians.
How do all the major airlines flying Boeing 737s keep DAILY flights and their fleets operating 24/7???
The same way you can hop in your car and drive it every day all year simply by replacing the oil, tires, and brakes at set intervals while a formula one crew goes through 2 or three engines a season and a dozen sets of tires in a weekend.
Fighter jets are built and run like formula one cars, 737 are built and run like honda civics.
Airliners are built to fly 50-90k hours often the limit is based on cycles, meaning how many times they takeoff and land as the pressurization weakens the metal overtime. They are built to be maintained and durable. They don’t have to pull high g forces or carry weapons on their wings. They also have paying passengers to cover the costs. The B-57 being similar to an airliner is why they will still be flying for another 2+ decades even though they were built in 1961, they only have about 17k flight hours on them
@@mcamp9445 to add to your excellent response 17k hrs is upwards of triple the original airframe life expectancy of many 4th gen fighters.
Not even an honorable mention of the F-18, the Navy's trusty workhorse.... 😔
According to Government Accountability Office's 2022 report; F/A-18A-D are approaching a whopping $50,000 due to its age. Super Hornet is at about $30,000, Growler is about $27,000 (cheaper because it's newer).
What would be the cost of each for a fly over
"They charge for parts AND labor!"
~Homer Simpson.
I hope the operating cost of an aircraft carrier isn’t passed onto the flight cost per hr of the Super Hornet and F-35C.😳
Is it possible to make an even cheaper and easier to maintain fighter then the F16 and A10?
Can a pilot be completely trained or atleast trained on the basics of how to fly aircraft just in a simulator?
What would a 4.9 fighter look like with today’s technology?
Yeah definitely, like one example is the Swedish JAS 39 Gripen, which one of the major points was about ease of using, flying & cost to maintain, buy, make, etc. But it's just not what the U.S. wants. But it's a good option for other countries.
I'm not sure, though it's worth noting that a fresh A-10 would be easier to maintain than the decades-old ones we've got. Also, the A-10 would be cheaper to maintain if it had fly-by-wire controls.
Wow 88k for my good old buffy
I don't think Russia or China do similar calculations for publication.
This is accurate - it’s part of what I tend to call the “transparency gap.” China and Russia don’t disclose anything unless it benefits them (or they’re forced to as a result of exposure).
@@SandboxxApp thanks, sarge
Do those costs include tips for the crew chief and ground crew?
Your glasses throw strange looking shades on your Face.
Otherwise this Video was super informative, top job as always.
They cost more is about they are created with quality
Because Corvettes cost more to maintain then tractors do.
How/where did you get your cost per flight hour figures? Using Jane's "comprehensive CPFH" formula (minus depreciation as it is probably not relevant here) the F-35 should have a CPFH of roughly $86,000/hr, assuming an 8,000hr airframe lifespan.
Haven't don't the calculations on the B-1 but they also seem way out of whack. Rarely quoted above $70k.
Try again Mr defense analyst.
What is going on at 6:20 ?
As the old saying goes, "Yes, but how much is that in dollars..."
Bad accounting, or at least terminology. "Cost per flight hour" implies just what it costs in flight. "Platform cost" would include all that overhead. But many of those costs are fixed costs, and go down "per hour" if there are more flight hours.
To get a better "flight hour" cost, the accounting needs to fit the definition.
Seems to me that a better, common language concept would be to only include those costs that are ADDED per hour in the sky. Which are really only fuel and maintenance replacement parts.
Even personnel costs shouldn't factor. They don't only get paid when they are operating on the aircraft. They are staff you're paying anyway, keeping around doing things to support the platform.
If you want to know what it costs to fly, sounds like it's just fuel and expended parts, maybe wear and tear depreciation (if that's separate from parts and repairs).
Acquisition costs are fixed. Platform support costs are fixed (personnel, training, hangars, runways, facilities, etc). Deployment and logistics costs are variable but depend highly on deployment conditions--where? How long?
These are separate categories that should not be rolled into one. To combine them is deceptive and leads to misunderstandings and likely poor decision-making, especially among politicians.
So....the cost to keep an aircraft ready to fly is there whether it flys or not...so the more you fly...the less per hour it costs save for the fuel you burn and weapons you deploy.
There's a significant amount of fat to trim in the overhead and training department. Significant...
I am not all too worried about pier adversaries during wartime for these logistical issues you covered about Aviation. Afghanistan leftovers and Chinese knockoff aviation lack decades of high tempo maintenance and training of Western nations, especially to US.
Color grading is so cold? Why?
Why is kids play so expensive. Because you play in a elite Sandbox news
You could let Swedish engineers design your next jet and cut maitenance costs with half, and downtime with more than 80%... Just saying.
We have seen obvious examples of the lack of maintenance done by Russia's Navy, Air Force, and Army. Have you ever wondered about the maintenance of systems that we do not see? Submarines? Nuclear Weapons? Permanent Radar installations?
Bc we’re MERICA! We love to spend mooooneeeeey!