Forum: Modern Military Aircraft

F-22 costs $44K per flight hour according to USAF 2008 figures. It's safe to say its far cheaper to operate the F-22.

F-16.net Sponsor

shep1978 wrote:

F-22 costs $44K per flight hour according to USAF 2008 figures. It's safe to say its far cheaper to operate the F-22.

It's far from being safe as you don't know how this 44k $ figure is calculated.
And I assume that you missed the part in your link below the table which states:

Quote:

This includes forward and depth servicing, fuel costs, crew costs, training costs and the cost of capital charge and depreciation. The Typhoon cost per flying hour reflects the smaller numbers of aircraft currently in the fleet and their relatively short period in service. This is expected to reduce significantly over the in-service life of the aircraft.

If the 44k $ figure is just the marginal operating cost between keeping an aircraft on ground or let it fly these figures aren't even remotely comparable!

Scorpion82 wrote:

shep1978 wrote:

F-22 costs $44K per flight hour according to USAF 2008 figures. It's safe to say its far cheaper to operate the F-22.

It's far from being safe as you don't know how this 44k $ figure is calculated.
And I assume that you missed the part in your link below the table which states:

Quote:

This includes forward and depth servicing, fuel costs, crew costs, training costs and the cost of capital charge and depreciation. The Typhoon cost per flying hour reflects the smaller numbers of aircraft currently in the fleet and their relatively short period in service. This is expected to reduce significantly over the in-service life of the aircraft.

If the 44k $ figure is just the marginal operating cost between keeping an aircraft on ground or let it fly these figures aren't even remotely comparable!

I doubt the figures are summed up any differently than from how the UK MOD does its figures. I mean how many different ways are there that you can compute flight hour cost? Not too many I would think and even then the different methods wouldn't throw the figures out that much.

There are a lot of different ways. Some calculate just the marginal difference between keeping an aircraft on ground and to let it fly which translates into figures like the 3000 $/fh figure for the Gripen. Others include the general personal costs or average costs for spares (taking spare consumption and prices for them into account), others include the acquisition costs of the aircraft spread over the number of projected flight hours, which in turn can be fly-away or system price including R&D etc., some include the costs for setting up the logistic chain and support system. Some may factor in the sustainment costs for the support equipment. It's even possible that the total costs to sustain an entire base with everything being included are spread over the number of flight hours and if you have many bases and relative few aircraft these costs are different as well. Even the way how you employ aircraft affects the costs to a more or lesser extend. A small AF for example operating aircraft from a single AB and performing air policing duties will certainly have different costs than an AF operating the same type in various roles, from different ABs including deployments, combat ops etc. There are countless things which can be included or excluded and as long as it isn't clear what's included in these figures they are not comparable. Even personal costs differ from country to country as a pilot or technician with an equal rank might be paid entirely different.

Scorpion82 wrote:

There has been rumours about this, but it was never confirmed and I'm sceptical towards these reports. The F-22 would have been of little value for the RAF being overly expensive and inflexible. It doesn't need a F-22 to bolster NATO's defence capability or reduce the stress on the US forces. There are no F-22s in Europe either so which "infrastructure" advantages do you think of?

Well, we have to disagree about the F-22 being of little value. It might not be ideal when it comes to versatility, particularly when it comes to air-ground, but then again, neither is the Typhoon. And if we're going into cost. The alternative apparently is the Typhoon. Given the costs floating around in this thread, which would you choose for your air force?

My thinking was that if the UK operated F-22s from say two bases in the UK the infrastructure would be in place, there would be spare parts, trained personnel, all of that must surely help if the USAF wanted to move F-22s to Europe for whatever reason that might arise over the next 20-30 years?

While the Typhoon is currently rather limited when it comes to AG it will be further developed and become a much more capable and flexible multirole platform. The F-22 design is hampered here by its weapon bay layout alone. Don't get me wrong the Raptor is the best fighter out there, but that's about it. The cost figures have to be consumed with some care as well as they are quite often apples and oranges comparisons. On top of that you have to add the value for the UK aerospace industry which would not have been the case if the F-22 was purchased from the US. And the RAF has certainly other concerns than introducing a type to put the infrastructure in place which might be used by the F-22 at some day or not. A WWIII scenario isn't that likely these days and if there are conflicts they are in other locations, so that the RAF bases would be of limited utility for the USAF and thus the infrastructure to support the F-22. In the end of the day I'm not a great fan of "what if scenarios" if there isn't even the slightest possibility that this what if could happen, but that's my opinion on the subject.

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-d ... -f-22.html

It still looks like the F-22 is cheaper. Look at what the CPFH includes and you'll see it includes, quote: "The operational CPFH includes the costs of fuel, manpower, spares and maintenance. It also adds in the cost of building new hangars and standing up new bases"

I cannot see how the UK MOD CPFH would somehow include more than all of those things.

Forum: Modern Military Aircraft

UK National Audit Office spills the beans on Typhoon costs