What's A Helicopter Cost? | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-10.28.24

Airborne-NextGen-10.29.24

Airborne-Unlimited-10.30.24

Airborne-Unlimited-10.24.24

Airborne-Unlimited-10.25.24

Sun, Mar 06, 2005

What's A Helicopter Cost?

If You're DOD, The Answer Is About $21 Million

Ever wonder what the DOD spends on all those high-tech helicopters like Apaches and Blackhawks? The Fiscal Year 2005 supplemental budget -- the US Government fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30 so we're almost halfway -- finds the Army requesting money to replace aircraft lost in the war.

They're not asking for money for Kiowas or Little Birds, they have whole fleets of them in storage, but they need to completely replace 13 AH-64 Apaches and five UH-60 Black Hawks that have been lost in accidents or enemy action, mostly in Iraq and some in Afghanistan.

That's $371.9 million for 18 helicopters, or an average of $20,661,111.11.

Now, that number is wrong in a couple of ways... firstly, because it's the product of a mathematical operation on a rounded figure, it appears to be more precise than it really is. The "$371.9 million" figure, which came from a newsletter called "Inside the Army" published by InsideDefense.com, is certainly a rounded-off number. Secondly, because we are looking at two dissimilar types, we don't have the exact cost of either -- Apaches cost more than Blackhawks.

But we can break this out, if we can accept a little imprecision. Now, I seem to recall from discussions with Sikorsky that the latest UH-60 Blackhawk, all-up, is about $15 million. That would explain why civilian operators don't use many of the powerful birds -- a rare exception is well-heeled LA County, which got its versatile Firehawks by lucking into a third-world air force's "going out of business" sale. That means that about $75 million of this supplemental is buying the five 'Hawks, and the rest -- $296.9 million or so -- goes to buy Apaches.

That would put the value of each individual Apache at about $22.8 million.

I guess one won't be joining the Aero-News fleet anytime soon. Dang!

FMI: www.army.mil

Advertisement

More News

Senator Pushes FAA to Accelerate Rocket Launch Licensing

States That Current Process is Damaging National Aerospace Development US Senator Jerry Morgan is pushing the FAA to speed up the process for rocket launch licensing. He argues tha>[...]

Classic Aero-TV: RJ Gritter - Part of Aviation’s Bright New Future

From 2015 (YouTube Edition): Model Aviator Aims For Full-Scale Career While at the 2015 Indoor Electric RC Festival, referred to as eFest, ANN CEO and Editor-In-Chief, Jim Campbell>[...]

Aero-FAQ: Dave Juwel's Aviation Marketing Stories -- ITBOA BNITBOB

Dave Juwel's Aviation Marketing Stories ITBOA BNITBOB ... what does that mean? It's not gibberish, it's a lengthy acronym for "In The Business Of Aviation ... But Not In The Busine>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (10.27.24)

Aero Linx: Cardinal Flyers Online The Cardinal Flyers Online Web site was created and is maintained by me, Keith Peterson. My wife Debbie and I have owned a 1976 RG since 1985. Wit>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (10.27.24): Clearance Void If Not Off By (Time)

Clearance Void If Not Off By (Time) Used by ATC to advise an aircraft that the departure release is automatically canceled if takeoff is not made prior to a specified time. The exp>[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2024 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC