How Much Money Does A Fighter Jet Cost

In this era of flying stealing supercomputers like the F-35 Joint Strike Attack aircraft and F-22 Raptor, many feature questioned the wisdom of purchasing a slew of recent old fighters. The F-15EX does non boast any stealing capabilities, nor does it have the equivalent knack for sensing element fusion that has attained the F-35 the unauthorized nickname of "quarterback in the sky." Despite this apparent deficiency of capability, the Air Force is procuring F-15EXs at a monetary value of around $87.7 million each, as compared to the now lower F-35 Mary Leontyne Pric of just $77.9 million per aircraft.

This cost differential only emboldens the F-15EX's critics, who remonstrate that the F-35 offers a far wider variety of capabilities and is considered a great deal more than survivable in contested air space (thanks to its stealth capabilities). When you lone consider those figures, the F-15EX may seem like a bad poor choice.

The primary U.S. Air Draw F-15EX fighter aircraft took its maiden flight of steps February 2, 2022 in St. Louis. The 173rd Fighter Wing is scheduled to become the F-15EX Fighter Training Unit in 2024. (Photo Courtesy of Boeing/Eric Shindelbower)

However, the reality of military acquisitions and combat capability are far more nuanced than a broadside-by-side tale of the tape might represent. While the F-15EX may indeed cost more per airframe than the latest batch of F-35s, it may actually be the savvier purchase. The F-35 is motivated to have an operational lifespan of around 8,000 hours, whereas each F-15EX is expected to last 20,000. Put differently, in order to tent-fly the same number of hours as an F-15EX, the Air Force would need to buy out non one, but three F-35As.

That price reduction is encourage bolstered by operational costs. Keeping a richly performance fighter in tip-top shape is expensive and time consuming, but in that portion of the book of account, the F-15EX once again shines. The Air Force expects to spend around $29,000 for every hour the F-15EX is in the transmit, far cheaper than the F-35's figures recorded in 2022 of around $44,000 per hour. Instantly let's do a bit of back-of-the-envelope math to assess how often these aircraft will in reality price in a battle.

This jet burns almost as much money per 60 minutes as the average American makes in a year. (U.S. US Air Force photo away Higher-ranking Airman R. Alex Durbin)

The F-15EX costs $87.7 million per aircraft, and stool fly for up to 20,000 hours at a cost of $29,000 per hour. And so $29,000 per hour x 20,000 hours + $87.7 million for the aircraft comes intent on a beautiful serious-minded $667.7 million dollars.

In order to match that operational lifespan, it would take three F-35As. So the math would look equal $44,000 per hour x 20,000 hours + $233.7 jillio for three F-35s… and information technology comes out to more than a jaw descending $1.1 billion. The F-15EX, then, offers a saving of around $446 million per aircraft concluded the lifespan of the jet (if things were this simple, anyway).

To give the F-35 a slightly more realistic shake, Army of the Righteou's use larger volumes of aircraft, rather than 1:1 comparisons. The Air Force plans to buy at least 144 F-15EXs, but for the rice beer of simple mathematics, have's call it 100. The above per-aircraft cost times a one C comes out to $66,770,000,000 spent on aircraft and 2,000,000 flight hours. You would motive 250 F-35s to match the same flight hour total, which combined with operating costs come to $109,925,000,000. In this more veridical comparison, the F-15EX offers a less pronounced reward, merely nonmoving comes to the tune of some $43,155,000,000 in savings over the span of the program. $43 billion is for sure nothing to scoff at.

F-35 (left) and F-15 (right) (U.S. Free-flying Force exposure/ Technical school. Sgt. Saint Matthew the Apostle Plew)

Now, it's important to note here that this math is egregiously easy: Lockheed Martin and the Air Force are already impermanent tirelessly to reduce the operating costs of the F-35 (because the Air Effect says they stern't afford them if they don't).

The cost per minute of the F-35 is sure to drop in the years to come — and just equally importantly, the F-35 is a stealth platform built largely to hire found targets. The F-15EX, but then, is an air high quality fighter designed to duke information technology call at the skies. Both of these aircraft are capable of either role, but at a fundamental level, these blue jets plainly aren't stacked to do the same jobs. It might help to look on them American Samoa NASCAR and Expression 1 racers: Both are highly capable platforms, but they'ray each highly specialized for their specific employment. The new F-15EXs the Air Force buys won't fill F-35 spots, just will instead replace aging F-15s in America's existing arsenal.

Alex Hollings

Alex Hollings is a writer, daddy, and Marine veteran who specializes in foreign policy and defense technology analysis. He holds a master's degree in Communication theory from Southern New Hampshire University, as healed as a bachelor's degree in Corporate and Organizational Communications from Framingham State University.