To support a side comment in previous article, I did a quick search on operating costs of fighters. For future reference in other articles, I’ll list some of the info here.
4/2/13 – Time magazine – Costly Flight Hours – This is the longest list I could quickly find. Author cites a researcher who volunteered the info he had gathered from official sources, so take it for what its worth. Cool official pictures for the planes, too. A few highlights:
Bombers:
B-1B Lancer Bomber — $57,807
B-2A Spirit Stealth Bomber — $169,313
B-52H Stratofortress Bomber — $69,708
I’m not quite sure why a B-1 has lower hourly operating costs than a B-52.
VIP transport:
C-20B VIP Plane (Senior Pentagon Officials) — $32,212
C-32A VIP Plane (Vice President, Cabinet Officers) — $42,936
VC-25A Air Force One — $161,591
E-4B Flying Headquarters — $163,485
Fighters:
F-15C Eagle Fighter — $41,921
F-16C Viper Fighter — $22,514
F-22A Raptor Fighter — $68,362
Drones:
MQ-1B Predator Drone — $3,679
MQ-9A Reaper Drone — $4,762
RQ-4B Global Hawk Drone — $49,089
At one-tenth the hourly cost of an F-15, you can see why the military likes the small drones.
12/30/14 – Business Insider – This Chart Shows the Staggering Hourly Cost of Operating US Military Aircraft – Info from this article for hourly operating costs:
- $1,500 – Predator drone
- $11,500 – A-10
- $70,000 – V-22
- $32,000 – F-35
- $44,000 – F22
- $135,000 – B-2
10/16/09 – Key Publishing forum – Only looked at one post on the forum which has a long discussion. One person mentioned these hourly operating costs from 2009:
- $5,000 – F-16
- $17,000-$30,000 – F-15C
- $19,000-$30,000 – F-22
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