Jets Cost

clock plane will cost up to two and a half time more than the plane it is replacing. From the cost of the US defence budgets to the scale of US aviation fleet, the impact of this development is far-reaching.

Is the U.S. Military Getting Smaller and Older? contains a graph showing the cost of a large number of fighters bought between 1955 and 2017. Each of the three JSF planes cost much more than its predecessor. An F-35A Common Strike Strighter cost about 100 million dollars, far more than the 35 to 40 million dollars of the F-16 it replaced.

That $131. 2 million vehicle-borne F-35C J. C. Fighter will replace the $65 million F/A-18C Hornet, a 100 per cent increment. F-35B of the Marine Corps cost 131.6 million dollars, well over 50 million dollars from AV-8B Harrier II and 60 million dollars from F/A-18 Horet. There is the greatest cost differential with aerial dominance hunters.

F-22 Raptor cost about $250 million and substituted the F-15 Eagle, which cost $65 million each. On the map, the most cost efficient substitute was the F-15Eike Eagle, a multi-purpose combat plane that superseded the F-111 Aardvark. They both cost about the same amount, about $80 million each. Put in simple terms, the Pentagon can buy fewer airplanes.

These airplanes are better suited? Including the F-22 and F-35, the latest fifth generations of hunters are probably two to three more powerful than their forerunners. It is expected that such airplanes will stay in operation for an additional 10-20 years on a daily basis. Airplanes have been getting better and better for a while now.

Throughout World War II, one hundred B-17s attempted to reach a destination such as a large railway station and often missed all the shells. In the 1980' s, a unique, high specialised F-117 camouflage hunter was able to do the work and had an outstanding opportunity to survive the operation. Until 2020, an F-35 Joint Strike Flagfighter, the "lower end" of the US Air Force, would have just as good a shot at finishing and survival as the costly, specialised F-117.

OK, so a new airplane can cost twice as much, but it can take the place of two airplanes. With the US Military Force (U.S. Force, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Marine Corps Aviation) becoming smaller and smaller, their responsibility continues to increase. US troops are often deployed, if not in action, in East Europe, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, the Baltic and Scandinavia, the South China Sea, the Korea-Pacific, the East Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa and other countries.

Less airplanes and more assignments mean that current airplanes and crews work more hard and send more often abroad. Norman Augustine, former Under Secretary of State of the Army, in 1984 wrote: "In 2054, the total defence budgets will buy only one plane. That plane must be divided by the Air Force and the Navy 3-1/2 working day per time period, except in the leap year, when it is put at the disposal of the Marines for the additional time period.

Maybe we're already at this point thanks to UAVs. Unaccompanied aeroplanes are smaller and simpler to design, which reduces research and engineering overhead. Otherwise, we should probably begin to plan for the one plane we will buy in 2054.