The mission systems avionics on a F/A-18F costs around $1-2m per aircraft. This includes Displays, PowerPC based AMC boards, power supplies etc. Hardware in the

The mission systems avionics on a F/A-18F costs around $1-2m per aircraft. This includes Displays, PowerPC based AMC boards, power supplies etc. Hardware in the Loop testing quite practical and was ran as an engineering flight simulator. Missions were flown in the simulator, and problems located without costing $20k/hr per aircraft for an actual flight test. SpaceX do HIL tests with the Falcon 9 & Dragon spacecraft. http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/003/120424date/ http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/003/120424date/