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Isn't cost misleading? the "cost per plane" is usually the input (total money dedicated by congress including 50 year maintainence window) divided by the outpu

Isn't cost misleading? the "cost per plane" is usually the input (total money dedicated by congress including 50 year maintainence window) divided by the output (number of planes). so it looks unusally expensive (f35 prOGrAm coSTs 1.5 TRilLiON DollARS) but the actual materials of the plane is a minute fraction of that nummber which is what people think of when they hear cost.

slt2021 3y ago
basically military budget will always eat 1/4 to 1/3 of the US budget no matter the output, so if it produces few dozen F35 then yes - it will look like costs per unit are outrageous. a lot of military spending is fixed costs that pentagon is unable to dial down, has to spend due to contracts and maintenance, and basically jobs + pork barrel program. so they just play "hollywood accounting" tricks by allocating their spend from line item A to line item B, depending on what voters will bear. one decade it will be Afghanistan war, another decade it will be airforce development, this upcoming decade it will be Navy spending on new boats etc.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > basically military budget will always eat 1/4 to 1/3 of the US budget Its closer to 1/6.
yread 3y ago
Wiki also says that B-21 is projected to cost 213B$ for 100 planes over 30 years. So you get 2.13B$ again. Projected costs are also likely to increase (of course! I can't estimate how much time one screen is gonna take me, can't imagine estimating 30 years worth of stuff)
- ianburrell 3y ago
  The $203B is the total program cost. It includes the 30 years of operating costs which are more than development and acquisition. The unit cost is currently estimated to be $700 million. The B-2 $2B is 1992 unit cost. Inflation means more like $4B. Plus, the B-2 are pretty expensive to operate which is why the B-21 will replace the B-2 first.
  - giantrobot 3y ago
    The Air Force planned to order more than 100 B-2s when the program was started but Congress cut the order down to fewer than two dozen. So the cost per plane ballooned because the development costs had to be amortized of a smaller number of airframes.

slt2021 3y ago

basically military budget will always eat 1/4 to 1/3 of the US budget no matter the output, so if it produces few dozen F35 then yes - it will look like costs per unit are outrageous. a lot of military spending is fixed costs that pentagon is unable to dial down, has to spend due to contracts and maintenance, and basically jobs + pork barrel program. so they just play "hollywood accounting" tricks by allocating their spend from line item A to line item B, depending on what voters will bear. one decade it will be Afghanistan war, another decade it will be airforce development, this upcoming decade it will be Navy spending on new boats etc.

dragonwriter 3y ago
> basically military budget will always eat 1/4 to 1/3 of the US budget Its closer to 1/6.

yread 3y ago

Wiki also says that B-21 is projected to cost 213B$ for 100 planes over 30 years. So you get 2.13B$ again. Projected costs are also likely to increase (of course! I can't estimate how much time one screen is gonna take me, can't imagine estimating 30 years worth of stuff)

ianburrell 3y ago
The $203B is the total program cost. It includes the 30 years of operating costs which are more than development and acquisition. The unit cost is currently estimated to be $700 million. The B-2 $2B is 1992 unit cost. Inflation means more like $4B. Plus, the B-2 are pretty expensive to operate which is why the B-21 will replace the B-2 first.
- giantrobot 3y ago
  The Air Force planned to order more than 100 B-2s when the program was started but Congress cut the order down to fewer than two dozen. So the cost per plane ballooned because the development costs had to be amortized of a smaller number of airframes.