Flyaway cost is one measure of the cost of an

aircraft An aircraft ( aircraft) is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, i ...

. It values the aircraft at its

marginal cost In economics, the marginal cost is the change in the total cost that arises when the quantity produced is increased, i.e. the cost of producing additional quantity. In some contexts, it refers to an increment of one unit of output, and in others it ...

, including only the cost of production and production tools essential for building a single unit."FY 2009 Budget Estimates."
''

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

'' via ''saffm.hq.af.mil'', February 2008, p. 81. It excludes sunk costs such as research and development, supplementary costs such as support equipment, and future costs such as spares and maintenance. There are other possible measures of aircraft cost: *The sum of the aggregate flyaway cost and the research and development cost divided by the number of aircraft, equivalent to the average total production cost *Total cost over the lifetime of the aircraft program, including maintenance, divided by the number of aircraft, equivalent to average total cost including maintenance The flyaway cost can be meaningfully compared to another cost metric, the ''procurement cost''. The procurement cost (often referred to for military aircraft as the ''weapons system cost'') is the total price of the aircraft. A good way of looking at the difference is that the flyaway cost is the cost of ''making'' the aircraft, while the procurement cost is the cost of ''buying'' the aircraft. Procurement costs may include ancillary equipment costs, one time non-recurring contract costs, and airframe, engine and avionics support costs. For example, the flyaway cost for the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet up to 2009 (for the 449 units built) was

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57.5 million per unit, but the procurement cost was 39.8% higher, at

80.4 million per unit. The production cost of technologically complicated aircraft will always be higher during the

low rate initial production Low rate initial production (LRIP) is a term commonly used in military weapons projects and programs to designate the phase of initial, small-quantity production. The term is also applied in fields other than weapons production, most commonly in ...

(LRIP) period, and costs per units invariably drop as an aircraft is put into full production. The

Government Accountability Office The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent, nonpartisan government agency within the legislative branch that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the s ...

has found that the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and superv ...

rarely achieves these cost savings because few programs move from LRIP to full-scale production..

References

{{Reflist Aircraft finance Costs