On Friday, we compared the actual operational costs of four different fleets in the US Air Force inventory over the past decade, with data supplied by the Center for Defense Information's sources. The charts revealed some startling trends among the USAF's aging and most mature combat aircraft.
Now it's going to get a little weird.
We are turning our focus today to less mature or less numerous aircraft types in the USAF inventory. Remember we are using a metric called operational cost per flight hour (CPFH) This excludes only modifications funded by procurement accounts. 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, which tends to skew the data especially as new aircraft types come on line.
It's unfair to compare new aircraft that have entered service in the last 10 years to previous models that have spent decades already in the fleet. But it may be worthwhile to compare them to each other. The USAF has introduced two all-new aircraft in the last decade -- the Lockheed Martin F-22 and the Bell Boeing CV-22. In the first year each was introduced, they yielded an operational CPFH of $2,855,132 and $24,463,579, respectively. These numbers are so wildly off the mean that we deleted from the chart below. Both sets of numbers can fluctuate wildly as production deliveries are completed and supply chains mature.
Another category that produces some spectacularly pricey operational CPFH metrics are fleets of highly specialised aircraft. These include such well-known aircraft as the VC-25 (better known as "Air Force One" when the President is on board) and the E-4B national airborne operations center. There are only two of the former and four of the latter, so all manpower, fuel and maintenance costs are borne by a very small sample size. Even more specialised, and less well-known, are the WC-135 Constant Phoenix fleet, which sniffs for nuclear radiation. There is only one WC-135W, which has thrust reversers, and one WC-135C, which doesn't. The WC-135W is the USAF's most expensive CPFH, but that's less meaningful since there is only one of them.
Now it's going to get a little weird.
We are turning our focus today to less mature or less numerous aircraft types in the USAF inventory. Remember we are using a metric called operational cost per flight hour (CPFH) This excludes only modifications funded by procurement accounts. 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, which tends to skew the data especially as new aircraft types come on line.
It's unfair to compare new aircraft that have entered service in the last 10 years to previous models that have spent decades already in the fleet. But it may be worthwhile to compare them to each other. The USAF has introduced two all-new aircraft in the last decade -- the Lockheed Martin F-22 and the Bell Boeing CV-22. In the first year each was introduced, they yielded an operational CPFH of $2,855,132 and $24,463,579, respectively. These numbers are so wildly off the mean that we deleted from the chart below. Both sets of numbers can fluctuate wildly as production deliveries are completed and supply chains mature.
Another category that produces some spectacularly pricey operational CPFH metrics are fleets of highly specialised aircraft. These include such well-known aircraft as the VC-25 (better known as "Air Force One" when the President is on board) and the E-4B national airborne operations center. There are only two of the former and four of the latter, so all manpower, fuel and maintenance costs are borne by a very small sample size. Even more specialised, and less well-known, are the WC-135 Constant Phoenix fleet, which sniffs for nuclear radiation. There is only one WC-135W, which has thrust reversers, and one WC-135C, which doesn't. The WC-135W is the USAF's most expensive CPFH, but that's less meaningful since there is only one of them.
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