3 ms·
Planes were cheaper then. I wonder if the higher costs of today's planes results in any pressure to try to save planes that in your dad's day would have been co
by tzs 2y ago
Planes were cheaper then. I wonder if the higher costs of today's planes results in any pressure to try to save planes that in your dad's day would have been considered not worth the risk?
An F-86 ranged from $180-$580k in 1950 dollars, depending on the model. That's around $2.4-7.8 million now. That's quite a bit lower than the statistical value of human life that is currently used by the government for regulatory analysis, which is $13.1 million.
An F-35 is something like $80-$110 million. Even if we add the cost of training for the pilot, which Google tells me is $10.1 million for an F-35, to the statistical life value we only get $23.2 million which is only 21-29% of the cost of the plane.
- qingcharles 2y agoI look at, say, the war in Ukraine, where they have a fresh supply of planes from allies, but their roster of pilots is diminishing. In this situation the pilot is far more valuable than the plane. And probably always the case during war when aircraft production is at a maximum.
- lenkite 2y agoOut of curiosity, is there a source for the "statistical value of human life" at $13.1 million ?
- coolspot 2y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life
- tzs 2y ago“HHS Standard Values for Regulatory Analysis, 2024” [1] [1] https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cd2a1348ea0777b1aa918089e4965b8c/standard-ria-values.pdf https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cd2a1348e...
- sirspacey 2y agoAn airman I know shared that it cost $10M + to train a pilot by the time they can run missions, which matches the sources Perplexity found on the question. (1) The number of years the military gets to keep a trained pilot is limited, so that’s also a factor. The more significant one is that so few people prove to be capable and willing to be fighter pilots. Replacement is not a given. 1 https://www.perplexity.ai/search/how-much-does-it-cost-the-air-D8ToGqfyTOiFz6Z2uqESKA https://www.perplexity.ai/search/how-much-does-it-cost-the-a...