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?
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It is any heavy aircraft, a B777 (a common passenger jet) costs about $28,800 an hour to operate.
In order to understand why this is it is helpful to understand how we come up with this number and how it can be different depending on how many hours a year the plane flies. A plane has required maintenance both on time and flight hours. You have to inspect the fan blades once in a 365 day period no matter what. So you spread that cost over every hour the plane flies. In order to understand whether your ‘revenue flight’ is going to make you any money you have to figure in all the things that make the plane fly; insurance, paying the pilots and crew, fuel, maintenance, ramp fees, etc etc. The less you use a plane the more each hour costs, it is why you might here an airline executive say something like “it costs money to have the plane sit on the ground.” They are right, you still have to pay maintenance even if it doesn’t fly, so it is better to have the plane operating 17 hours a day.
It isn’t much different in the military; the taxpayer needs to pay for these things, including paying the salaries of the two guys/gals sitting in the front, the loadmaster, the fuel, the spare parts, etc. If you can get a good idea of how many hours that plane will operate and under what conditions, you can properly budget your operational expenses for the year.
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