Price of the new combat fighters ?!

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Member for

15 years 2 months

Posts: 2,619

I just found this; http://nation.time.com/2011/09/28/sticker-shock-iraqi-f-16s-165-million-each/

An F-16 costs 165 million USD each !

I heard a F-22 was 380 mio USD.

How can a F-35 stay at 154 mio USD ?

Original post

Member for

10 years 3 months

Posts: 102

Ab initio purchases are expensive because you are paying not just for the planes, but for everything else that is needed on the ground before the planes can fly. However, despite Time's report, the final price was at $2.3 billion with everything, not $4.2 billion. A follow-up order in 2013 for another 18 F-16 was only $830 million, presumably because everything else has been paid for.

Member for

12 years 1 month

Posts: 4,168

True, but still as expensive as a Gripen NG...

Member for

12 years 3 months

Posts: 3,106

True, but still as expensive as a Gripen NG...

Where is there a quote for Gripen NG at 46 million per?

The Gripen C/D was listed at having a unit cost between 40-50 million.

Member for

15 years 2 months

Posts: 2,619

Ab initio purchases are expensive because you are paying not just for the planes, but for everything else that is needed on the ground before the planes can fly. However, despite Time's report, the final price was at $2.3 billion with everything, not $4.2 billion. A follow-up order in 2013 for another 18 F-16 was only $830 million, presumably because everything else has been paid for.

Ok !

Thanks for this..it was a relief.

1000 % cost increase in 17 years would have been hard to swallow for " fighter mafia's " nimble little plane that can.

Member for

13 years 5 months

Posts: 3,381

True, but still as expensive as a Gripen NG...

It's a larger plane.

Member for

11 years 1 month

Posts: 783

Iraqi F16s first batch cost about $1.1Bn including airframes, engines, radars, pods, ground equipment. Second batch about $950M all in.

Iraq did however pay another $1Bn+ within the same contract for airbase updates, service, maintenance and overhaul centre in Iraq, and LM services for 5 years.

So the "aircraft" themselves cost Iraq about $2Bn for 36 planes ($55M approx each). The massive final "tag" is because of all the "service contracts" they bought for them. Now you have some other countries that dont buy these "service contracts" like Morocco... so their F16s cost the same as the Iraqi birds (flyaway cost) but their final "contract" cost is maybe less than half of what the Iraqis pay.

You can see the same across the spectrum for the Iraqi Air Force contracts... they have 12x Cessna 172s and 9x C208s, they're paying $15M a year for a US company to keep them flying! (the planes only cost $15M to buy in the first place!).

They basically saw the way the US military operated with contractors and said "we'll do the same" forgetting that they don't possess a printing press for making $ like the americans do.