Forum: Technology

The Falcon is not really an expensive fighter. I think one unit costs about 30 million $, which is less than most of the other fighters. Still it's a lot of money and I wonder why fighter aircrafts are so expensive. Is it because of the developpement costs or is it because of the materials used? Thanks for clearing it up!

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Actually all aircraft are expensive in relative terms. The main reason for the cost is the salaries of all the highly paid folks who design and build them. Plust the infrastructure (large buildings, transport costs, tooling) and cost of exotic raw materials. The if it's a classified program the company has to pay for all the security clearances which is very costly from what I understand. On most aircraft the engines make up the single most expensive part of the airplane and if you'd ever seen what goes into building one you'd understand the cost. Those are some of the main reasons.

I was at a plant where they design, make and test integrated circuit for civilian and military equipment. The same peace of kit for civilian use would be 1/10 of the cost of a military use. The main reason is the extensive testing done on military parts. They told us that parts for civilian use are tested 20% while military parts 100%. Parts that failed military testing could still pass civilian.

There are many reasons for this. One of them being the extreme conditions a part in a fighter is exposed to. As an example let’s put the fighter in the desert and start it up, take off and go up to 50,000 feet. The temperature changes from plus 45C to minus 50C in less than 5 minutes. Then there is the change in pressure and G stress…

When I started in the RNoAF I thought I knew how to solder after 2 years of civilian training to repair radios and TV’s. The military instructor convinced me in less than one minute that I did now have a clue. He showed me what happens when stress and temperature changes are applied, and he did it in 1 minute. Imagine after 6000 hours… Shocked

I am slowly starting to disagree on the engine being the single most expensive part on the F-16. It is the most expensive "bolt on thing" thing for the aircraft, But what most people do not realize is the engine all put together equals one Assembly. But the avionics system is a bunch of individual parts so no one is really counting the sum of parts in a system in the cost. In 2001 I asked a Pratt Rep how much a completed F-100 229 was and he told me about 3.5 Mil. Now with inflation I am guessing about 4.5 Mill a pop. I know of a certain pod that costs 4.5 mil by itself, Perhaps because it still is in the testing phase. But I am starting to see that there are a lot more costly parts on that aircraft besides the engine. That avionics package must cost a fortune if it was all added up! I bet the engine is one of the least costly parts on the F-16 when you add up all the systems components together. Here is my guess.
1. Airframe (Actual parts to look like the F-16)
2. Avionics (computers displays etc)
3. Egress (Seat etc)
4. Engine (Engine)
5 Electro environmental (cooling and heating system/ wires)
6. Fuel. (tanks pumps ect)

So you have all these systems and more, and someone had to get a contract, design test test test test build and test some more and use the lightest weight parts and make it last forever in the worst conditions possable. It all ads up to alot of money. When you figure out that there are 1,000's of parts on this aircraft. Two Cents

Last edited by elp on Dec 19, 2005 - 10:07 PM; edited 1 time in total

dupe post

Politicians are the most expensive part. Wanting to turn every project that comes down the pike into some jobs program that they can get credit for. Laughing

This usually kills any advantage from any particular list of numerous engineering/manufacture process/initiatives that grow into a program with the goal of reducing cost.

Enthusiast Joined: Nov 21, 2005 - 12:24 AM Posts: 65

elp wrote:

Politicians are the most expensive part. Wanting to turn every project that comes down the pike into some jobs program that they can get credit for. Laughing

This usually kills any advantage from any particular list of numerous engineering/manufacture process/initiatives that grow into a program with the goal of reducing cost.

I agree, that's kills the RAH-66, and twice the R&D cost of the F-22, and was close to kill the V-22

A perfect example of how expensive planes are: I was doing some research for my professor and I wanted to see how much a brand new Cessna was. Now, they didn't have a price listed for a 152, but they did have one listed for a 172 (the next grade up). I looked at the price and immediately went to the Ferrari website. You better believe that the Ferrari F430 (lowest grade Ferrari) costs the same as the Cessna 172.

The RAH-66 was cool, but unnecessary. Most AH-64's were lost to trash fire, stealth won't prevent trash fire. D@mn cool 'copter though.

Salute!

ELP-breath has it right.

The primary reason fighter aircraft, or bomber aircraft, or Cessna's cost so much has to do with the total $$ spent to research, design, test and then actually build the damned things. Divide all that by the number of units produced and you get the unit price (not cost, but what the customer pays at the car dealer). But, wait, THERE"S MORE!!!!

The politicians control the $$$$ for the military things. The civilian market has the same upfront costs just enumerated, but they don't usually have new requirements added to the original design, they don't have politicians trying to get a special doofer built by voters in their district, they don't have a guaranteed $$$ if their prototype fails and the whole program goes down the drain.

But, wait, THERE'S MORE!

If Chrysler or GM or Ford builds and sells 100,000 cars, then how much do you think that ashtray cost? Not much. But go to the dealer and ask for a new ashtray. You can guarantee that the replacement ashtray will cost a few hundred bucks. So when the Prowler folks wanted new ashtrays, Congress was mad because the unit price of a new ashtray or toilet seat or door hinge or armrest was very high. Yep, the original contract prolly had no provisions for spare ashtrays or toilet seats or whatever. So the suckers had to be built from scratch.

But wait!!!! THERE'S MORE!

Somewhere along the line, the end user, the consumer, decides they want a new doofer as standard equipment. Or worse, they want the car to go 200 mph versus the 150 mph the company thot would do. This doesn't happen in the real world. But in military procurement, too many folks play too many computer video games that have upgrades each month, or their computers that are only a year old are slower than hell compared to the dweeb a desk away who has a new one. So somehow, this new"requirement" to have a faster doofer gets included in the re-negotiated contract. The clever contractors and their lawyers have written into the paper a clause that requires the payer (read you and me taxpayers) to actually re-imburse them for new stuff. Geeeeee, imagine that?

But wait, THERE'S MORE!!!

The folks doling out the bucks (Congress or rich Emir or dictactor) discover that they can't buy 500 jets for the original price. Even before the first operational one is delivered. The development costs are now twice what was originally programmed. Geeeeee, guess we can just spend the $$$$ we've already appropriated and just buy less F-39's or whatever.

So we see the F-16 built to original unit cost (flyaway cost was the way they explained it to me back in 1979). Price was about $6 million to $7 million. Within 2 years, USAF had added so many new requirements and doofers, that the unit price went up double that.

The Raptor was specified to be about $35 million per copy based on a buy of several hundred jets (600, 700 800?). As stuff was added and Congress slowed down develoopment by allocating less bucks each year and the clever contractors had clauses to thwart such poor economic thinking, the jet goes to $50 million, the $60, then.... Whoa! This program is getting expensive, so we can't buy 500 using all the $$$$ we've allocated. So we buy less and convince ourselves (politicians speaking, not real fighter pukes) that we can finally handle the original mission requirements with just 2 of the damned things. Sheeeesh!!!!

*********************

DISCLAIMER: I flew neat jets for 20 years and I saw things happen from the end-user perspective. I then moved to a civilian career involving design, testing and development of neat stuff for my buddies still serving. That's when I saw how come an ashtray could cost $400. I also watched several neat weapons and jets bite the bullet due to gross mismanagement by the government agencies and the politicians who controlled the $$$$.

I can provide specific examples other than the Viper.
**********************

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Gums sends.......

Gums, I cringe with pain about some of your comments!!! Crying or Very sad

Those contractors are certainly crafty! My company buys certain electronic equipment. Basically it may be a black box. We just hook it up to our equipment through connectors. Our diagnostic gear would say the black box is kaput one day...we are pretty sure it is just a $1 fuse!
Guess what, it is a sealed unit and we can`t open it because we are legally bound not to. It goes back to the supplier to be "repaired" for mega bucks!!!!

The Contractors have us by the short and curlies! Does this practice sound familiar to anyone? We also have to consider the cost of spare units and justify how many we can have.....of course the damned contractor can "update" the gear at any time pushing up it`s price! We needed some gear from the New Orleans area, because of the Hurricane, it was delayed. We desperately needed it. A European supplier offered us the same gear, at THREE times the price because they knew we could`nt get it anywhere else!
Contractors Devil

Do spare parts come under the same budget as the initial supply of airframes, anyone? Or do they "juggle" the books to make those costs appear on another piece of paper, in "another" budget?

I have a solution to greatly cutting the cost of aircraft and I quote Shakespeare -

Shakespeare wrote:

The first thing we do, we kill all the lawyers Twisted Evil

!

Well, we can't actually do that, so I say we do the next best thing - exempt aircraft manufacturers from all liability for any modification not specifically authorized Very Happy

!!! Seriously, one of the things that killed off general aviation manufacturing for so long was lawsuits. Example: Some doofus modified the seats in his bugsmasher, he crashed the beast, then turned around and sued the manufacturer of the aircraft because they didn't say not to do it - and he WON Bang Head

!!!

I see the lawyers as the ones getting rich on these contracts and negotiations - let's see if we can get rid of some of the dead weight Very Happy

!

While I agree that there are cases of price gouging (seen it personally) and shady contractors (met some personally) I do think it's a stereotype and overgeneralization. If it is so exepensive and such a ripoff why doesn't the GAO/SEC put a stop to it? Why don't the services do the work themselves at a lower cost? Most weapons systems do come with a spares package and if they don't it's because the customer doesn't want one quoted because they want a lower price to get it past congress. Aerospace is chock full of expensive engineers, regulations, testing, and high tech stuff. You can make it cheaper IF you want to move all your work overseas to a third-world nation where the costs are lower. Does anybody want the F-22 being designed and built in Kerbalabistan?

And there's not a one of you that would voluntarily take a pay cut so that the government could buy your companies product cheaper. Funny thing about people - they rant and rave about how much other people are making but they don't gripe when they are making a nice paycheck.

Don't get me wrong - many of the elements mentioned so far do add to the cost. But it's oversimplified or misrepresented. Case in point - the C-5 toilet seat that was $$$$. Well the good old congressman went and bought a home toilet seat from a hardware store and then went on a rant as to why he could get one for $5 but the contractors were charging $$$$$. But the actual part for the a/c was much more than a Wal Mart plastic seat. If I remember correctly it was a toilet assembly and made out of stainless steel.

And remember - many of the cost escalations are due to the customer. They want to add a new gizmo and it requires a total redesign of an area and requalification. Anyone who has worked in a new a/c program will validate this. BUT - the contractor is an easy target and they can't complain because if they do they might not get the next contract.

Salute from ex-slimebag, steeekeeeeng, feeeelthy contractor!

My point is that the government has a way of making things twice or ten times as expensive as if the item was built by a private company trying to make money.

See Burt Rutan, for example. He refused to sign a normal contract with the government or NASA. He wanted a fixed-price deal, with simple progress payments based upon agreed milestones and performance. No changes or "upgrades" or other things we see in normal government contracts. Hence, a lot of his work was with DARPA, which apparently doesn't have the same rules as USAF, USN, USA or USMC with respect to contracting practices.

- "spares" are included in the final production contract. But "spares" do not normally include things like toilet seats for the crowdkillers/trashhaulers, or ashtrays for the A-6, or lottsa other things the loggies haven't thot of. So building a custom toilet seat that a) meets mil-spec, b) is one-of-a-kind, c) has to go thru a ton of paperwork to ensure "small and disadvantaged business have a shot, that the environment is protected, that your staff is ethnically diverse, that, that, that......

So we take a sheet of mil-spec aluminum and have a design team reverse engineer the toilet seat, then produce plans, then bid the seat to a company meeting all the requirements mentioned above, then pay all the lawyers and contracting folks, then have a civil service troop at the sheetmetal shop build the thing, then add up the labor hours, electricity used, etc., etc. and I'm surprised they could provide the damned thing for less than $2,000 or $3,000.

- The USAF kept adding requirements to the LOCPOD I worked on back in late 80's. Pretty soon, just the guidance system and motor cost 5-6 times what the whole-up round was supposed to. So pretty soon, the "low-cost" dospenser wasn't so low cost.

- USAF and USN have different operational requirements regarding EMP and salt water corrosion. So their stuff is much more expensive than the same plane for USAF.

- The services are stupid when it comes to interoperability and long-range supportability. So it used to be that McAir and TI had to provide special black boxes to get the Harpoon and HARM to work. Same for the Maverick launcher rail, and worst of all was the Hellfire. So the avionics companies other than the guilty parties tried to get a NATO standard for interoperability regarding weapon interfaces. That was my company's forte, as several of our staff were on the SAE working group that developed such standards.

So what we tried to do was eliminate "unique" interfaces and the associated boxes (provided by the company that made the weapon). Remember that in those days MFD's and central computers were just arriving. And we couldn't make room for all the extra boxes to accomodate the HARM or Harpoon or whatever.

By the early 90's, we made our case and soon the weapons could be added to the loadout without having to buy extra boxes and displays.

So I blame the services, not the guys trying to make a buck.

Now for the punch line........

Some of the vendors were small companies that went to other things or flat went out of business. So where do we get the replacement components? Additionally, some of the technology is so primitive that a whole new doofer had to go thru the expensive procurement process. Ask knowledgeable folks about the Trident missile guidance system. Ask a line dog about the B-52. and the beat goes on....

out,

parrothead wrote:

I have a solution to greatly cutting the cost of aircraft and I quote Shakespeare -

Shakespeare wrote:

The first thing we do, we kill all the lawyers Twisted Evil

!

Well, we can't actually do that, so I say we do the next best thing - exempt aircraft manufacturers from all liability for any modification not specifically authorized Very Happy

!!! Seriously, one of the things that killed off general aviation manufacturing for so long was lawsuits. Example: Some doofus modified the seats in his bugsmasher, he crashed the beast, then turned around and sued the manufacturer of the aircraft because they didn't say not to do it - and he WON Bang Head

!!!

I see the lawyers as the ones getting rich on these contracts and negotiations - let's see if we can get rid of some of the dead weight Very Happy

!

You hit the mark here oh great buffet fan! Smile

This is why the Soaring industry took a hard hit in the USA. People would crash their sailplanes and sue the manufacturers. Now, pretty much the only place sailplanes are still manufactured are places like Germany, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and Switzerland, where the only time you can sue a manufacturer is when you have proof that something they did or neglected caused a failure which resulted in injury/death. Even then, there is no such thing as "pain and suffering" rewards.

But back on topic, even a sailplane is expensive for what it is. All the money goes into the R&D and into the companies insurance providers.

As I recall, (Gums, you might want to step in here) in the early 80s there was a pilot in Korea that crashed due to a failure in the airplane. They were flying in very low visibility conditions. (close to zero I am sure) Aparently he was inverted and, but his instruments said he was right side up, so he pulled back on the stick to get altitude and went into the ground. His wife sued General Dynamics, and won. I don't know how much money was involved, but I'm sure it was a good figure.

As long as we're at it let's open the SADL/Litening II can o' worms. Any of the Block 30 ANG guys will know how great those programs worked and the politics of the AD and the subsequent jealousy it caused.....

Forum: Technology

Why are fighter aircraft so expensive?