Cost of Flight

[Wolf424]

The C-130E did great work for America, but she's now the old mare in the barn.

In the barn? I'd say she's already been taken to the glue factory.

[Dupe]

Dupe, the point is, there's a lot of duplication in those overall costs. Yes, there is a depot system, MICAP, engineering, and so on. But those people and systems support multiple airframes, and the "ownership costs" should not be promoted as if they are hourly operating costs.

Sadly, there's much less duplication than you probably think. The problem is that AF systems aren't really comparable to cars...or even civil aircraft for that matter. Sure, some of the support is duplicated. Shockingly, at the buying parts from a contractor level...it can be MDS-dependent and there are very real and very large revolving costs for each airframe type.

Additionally, aircraft cost vs time has a bathtub function to it. Say you BRAC a C-130H2 squadron to the boneyard and replace them with the same number of C-130Js. Even if flying hours and fuel burn was the same, you would expect the J to cost less because of the reduced depot costs: the J would live in the trough of the tub while the H2 is on the exponential increase near the end of its life.

You absolutely should include some part of the infrastructure costs when looking at operational costs. Just looking at the variable costs gives a completely inaccurate picture (ala JS's Hawker example) As an example, in my Test Wing, we commonly get requests to go fly developmental test fighters in support of things like the Patriot or E-2C programs. Per Federal law, those programs can only reimburse us for fuel cost and TDY funds. They're always pissed when we reject the offers outright.

[TheFranchise]

The C130E model CPFH jump in 2012 ownership costs is due to the massive retirement of that plane in 2012 along with the already allocated funds for C-130Es that year. The operational CPFH is directly calculated from the AF O&M budget that year. 60% of E models retire in 2012 so the remaining 15 TAI is less than when the O&M budget was created using 36 planes.

For the "special" ones that don't understand math...

The AF allocated and spent $229M on E model operations in 2012 for 2,550 flight hours. The cost per hour is $229M / 2,550 hour =$ 89,986 per hour

Whether we needed to spend 229M on E model O&M in 2012 is a whole other discussion.

Edited April 8, 2013 by TheFranchise

[sky_king]

Yup. Back to my original point. If you are trying to convice the wife that you need a BMW to impress your friends, you are going to tell her how "cheap" it is - only $200 per week due to the great gas mileage compared to, say, an SUV. If you are trying to talk her out of wasting money on such a car, you would explain to her how expensive MX is on the car, how much higher insurance is because it's a sports car, and all the other stuff you mention. In other words, the same car can be made to seem expensive, depending on who you are trying to convince.

Like was mentioned on the last page - this whole game is deciding where to draw the line in terms of what's being included in "operational costs" of airplanes.

This makes no sense. There is only one way to measure cost. The amount of money required to be spent because you own and operate a specific thing. You can either include gas, insurance, depreciation, mx, etc., or you can lie and not include it all. Also, the AF is different than owning a car. If you don't own a car, your taxes for road construction and DMV workers are not going to go down. If the AF BRACs a base, guess what, they don't have to pay for workers at the MPF, they don't have to buy towels, they don't have to pay for more pea gravel at the CDC playground. The AF's support bubble goes out a little farther and is a lot more direct than you buying a car.

I think everything should be included in the price per flying hour. If it takes 500 man-hrs on mx per flight-hr, why should that not be included if a similar plane does the same job on 50 man-hrs. Likewise, having 300 people in the squadron requires more money for everything from salaries to flu mist vaccinations for dependents to PFT waist measurement tapes. Otherwise, what do you attribute that cost to? Tops in Blue? I hope so, because I'd pay anything to see them again....

[Junglejett]

So, is there a government source that can provide some "credible" numbers?

[Butters]

What do you guys think would be a better way to measure how much an airframe actually costs?

Ha, easy! Use overall length. That is how we do it with boats.

[JS]

This makes no sense.

Exactly - you strengthened my point. There are way too many variables and way too many places to draw the cost line to get an accurate number as to the total cost to operate a military aircraft.

There is only one way to measure cost.

This makes no sense. There are thousands of ways to measure cost, depending on what you include, hence my points.

I know you hate the car example, but you mention that you can include fuel, MX, insurance, etc., or you can "lie" about those things. What about the cost of the asphalt to have your driveway paved? What about the sunk costs that it took to build the garage on your house 60 years ago when it was built? If the car is stored there, those are costs to operate the car. So is the overall cost of the house itself along with its utilities and homeowners insurance.

And, hopefully your answer will be "but you would have incurred those costs whether or not you had the BMW," which would lead me back to my original post. They are still sunk costs that are directly (at this time) associated with the cost of operating that vehicle. Without the driveway, garage, and electricity, you simply would not be able to operate your vehicle based out of your house. And yes, those costs were also spread out over the past 20 vehicles that were owned by the various homeowners of your house since it was built 60 years ago.

I think everything should be included in the price per flying hour. If it takes 500 man-hrs on mx per flight-hr...

If you think "everything" should be included, then why single out the obvious thing like MX hours? I think that is a given. The points brought up here question whether or not we should include the salary of the gate guard at Hanscomb AFB - a "non-flying" base - because there are AF engineers there who had some small part in the R&D of an airplane now being flown out of Florida. Where do you draw the line?

If you truly think "everything" should be included, we should really take the entire USAF budget and divide that by the number of total flying hours of all aircraft combined. That would probably be more accurate than this guessing game that the original article did. In some way, shape or form, most everybody and everything in the Air Force (except maybe missiles) theoretically supports the flying of the aircraft.