Why is it so expensive to fly and maintain military aircraft?

Question

I just so some numbers like 20-35K dollars per flight hour for some fighters and that seems ridiculous, anyone know what costs so much?

In: Other

Answer 1

An F-15 has about the same thrust as a 777 on a much, much smaller package and with significantly more varied and complex systems, and costs about $30k/hour to operate. The 777 costs about $30k/hr to operate at “free market rates”, so the military is actually pretty efficient.

The F-35 and F-22 are orders of magnitude more complex and cost correspondingly more to fly. A lot of this is down to maintenance of the radar absorbent paint, which is a fickle bitch to keep in good shape.