It's not unheard of for labour cost to be explicitly excluded as a purchasing criterion. The English Electric Lightning was one example: it was intended for def

It's not unheard of for labour cost to be explicitly excluded as a purchasing criterion. The English Electric Lightning was one example: it was intended for defence against Russian bombers with nuclear weapons, and cost of maintenance just didn't matter against any performance improvement which would improve the likelihood of success. The most extreme example was the Mirage IV nuclear bomber, which was said to consume 25% of the French military budget at one time. It wasn't unreliable - apparently it was surprisingly good in that respect - but keeping available was very expensive.