Costs of military aircraft (American)

Here is a unit cost for fighters, helicopters and cargo aircraft frames.

Comparison of the super Hornet with the Hornet

Something worthy of note is the unit cost of items that some might think could be better than the JSF... the Global Hawk UAV and the F18 Super Hornet.

An RQ-4 Global Hawk taxis down the runway at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., April 8, 2010, on an operational mission. During the flight, the aircraft flew over Canadian airspace for the first time in non-training status.

US Military Aircraft: Total and Unit Costs by Program 

 

(Source: US DoD for data; defense-aerospace.com for calculations; based on Selected Acquisition Reports to December 31, 2009) (in $ millions) 

(NOTES: (1) Numbers for previous production runs (“was”) refer to previous SAR, and not necessarily to the Dec. 2006 SAR used in our previous analysis. (2) significant unit cost increases in red.)