F14B Price?

Hi

I was wondering about the real price of the F14B back in the deployment date when the navy used for their operations, wikipedia says that is about 38M$ but I just want to get this data from a reliable source (if anyone have one).

Try to get an answer from @Victory205... but he doesn't always answer to everything, mind you.

:D

Hi

 

I was wondering about the real price of the F14B back in the deployment date when the navy used for their operations, wikipedia says that is about 38M$ but I just want to get this data from a reliable source (if anyone have one).

It heavily depends on the year. The U.S. underwent a bit of inflation across the 1970's which adjusted the price, but so too did the order size (cutting back the total orders causes the unit price to increase). Tom Gervasi's "Arsenal of Democracy II" provides the following:

"Price: $20.624 million (1978 Unit Procurement Cost for 44 aircraft). $19.025 million (1977 Unit Procurement Cost for 36 aircraft). $23.750 million (1974 Unit Program Cost for 80 aircraft sold under FMS to Iran, including unit procurement cost of $11.3 million and research and development surcharge)"[1]

Across time, the cost increased. Wikipedia, IIRC, indicates a cost in 1998 dollars, so you'd have to adjust for inflation, but it was probably in the vicinity of the $30M range when the last F-14D came off the assembly line. I have no doubt that someone could find the exact figure.

References:

Tom Gervasi, Arsenal of Democracy II, (New York: Grove Press, 1981), 97.

EDIT: I missed that this was specifically about the F-14B, but the point remains - unit cost changes based on year and production batch size.

Aircraft unit costs are pretty difficult to pin down. There are several numbers thrown around, mostly as a requirement for procurement budgets so Congress can have their day, either to protest the Military Industrial Complex, or crow about how much pork they are bringing to their districts/states.

As you can imagine, when the service purchases an airplane, they are also purchasing a logistics system of parts, training, manuals (contractors love to make up for low bid contracts by charging a mint for manual changes), technical support, maintenance rigs, test rigs, calibration standards, etc, etc, etc.

If you've followed the F35 program, you've noticed that the first tranche of aircraft were astronomical because the massive R&D and startup costs were amortized over so few aircraft.

All of that said, in the late 1980's, we were told the latest block aircraft were around $44 million in real dollars. If you jettisoned one, it would take a long time to repay it out of your docked salary.

So going by inflation calculators that's ~90 million dollars today, in the ballpark of new Strike Eagles/Rafales/Typhoons, slightly cheaper than the F35, and significantly cheaper than the F22.

Interesting, I would have guessed it would have been a bit cheaper.

IMHO, such a simple recalculation is wrong. Many components would now be cheaper to manufacture. If you take into account the upgrade of components, you will have to recalculate everything again.

Yea it's obviously just an estimate. For one, nobody sane would make an analog radar these days...