What Does an F-22 Cost?

[unhappycamper]

What Does an F-22 Cost?
Winslow Wheeler | March 28, 2009

On Wednesday, March 25, an F-22 crashed near Edwards Air Force Base, CA. Very sadly, the pilot was killed. The news articles surrounding this event contained some strange assertions about the cost of the F-22. The tragic event was apparently used to disseminate some booster-baloney.

Possibly based on the price asserted in the Air Force's "fact" sheet on the F-22 that was linked to a Pentagon "news" story on the crash, the cost per aircraft was typically described in many media articles as about $140 million.

What utter hogwash.

The latest "Selected Acquisition Report" from the Defense Department is the most definitive data available on the costs for the F-22. The SAR shows a "Current Estimate" for the F-22 program in "Then-Year" dollars of $64.540 billion, which includes both R&D and procurement. That $64.5 billion has bought a grand total of 184 aircraft.

Do the arithmetic: $64.540/184 = $350.1. Total program unit price for one F-22, what approximates the "sticker price," is $350 million per copy.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,187737,00.html?wh=wh

[Demeter]

1. If You Have to Ask The Price, You Can't Afford It

thank you, I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip the wait staff!

[depakid]

2. Depends on how many you make.

[krispos42]

3. That's probably the cost without R&D development

The R&D costs are fixed, whether you buy 1 fighter or 1,000.

I believe that originally the Air Force was going to buy about 400 F-22s. When that number got slashed, the per-unit cost of R&D went up.

Presumebly it cost $40 billion over a couple of decades to bring the F-22 to life and settle on a final design.

Ouch.



Gone are the good ol' days when they made thousands of them. Like the F-4 Phantom... 5,200 made. That really spread the development costs down.

[depakid]

4. Then again, One F-22 will do the job of many F-15's

not to mention that those airframes are old- and much more costly to maintain.

Lots of cost factors to consider.