In case you were wondering, no, that plane doesn't cost $1B. That's a lie. The F-35B costs $109M per unit. Still sounds like a lot? Eh, not particularly.
Watching yearly tax contributions of about dozen middle class Americans burn up in hopes to convince kids to join and fight aimless forever wars started before they were born.
That plane (F-35B) is STOVL: short takeoff, vertical landing. With low weight, it can hover like that and drop gently to land, allowing the Marines to use bombed-out runways without enough usable length for normal planes.
No, Republicans are why we can't have affordable healthcare. We spend more per capita on healthcare than Canada or the UK (by far, and possibly more than both combined), it's just all gobbled up by greedy fucking insurance companies, with a lot of it spent on bribing (sorry, I mean "lobbying") politicians to ensure that they maintain this status quo.
1.7 trillion is the lifetime cost. The F-15 program is around 5. And it's one of the best jet fighters in the world with a remarkably low accident/fatality rate. There is a reason why countries are climbing over each other to get one.
The F-16 is a legendary fighter and it is a very common misconception that because it's a pretty good ground pounder it made it a poorer dogfighter. It wouldn't be until aircraft made two decades later we saw actual competition and even then the viper is a nightmarish opponent in BFM. An aggressor pilot once told me that fighting an F-16 is like having a knife fight in a telephone booth. Likewise the F-35 is an incredibly dirty knife fighter aerodynamically because of internal stores and a
Very very powerful engine. The most powerful to be fitted to a jet fighter, period. As powerful as three F-104's strapped together on afterburner. The internal carriage of missiles makes it very very agile. Most aircraft lose a lot of their agility when you actually start mounting missiles. The top speed of an F-16 drops by almost 1/3 with four AMRAAMs and two sidewinders. The MiG29 can't break Mach with a fuel tank.
That cost is only from early production runs. As of Dec. 2023, each F-35B (like the one hovering in this video) costs $109M. Seems overpriced, but let's compare to other modern military aircraft:
Depends on the vintage but none of them are remotely close to that expensive. This marine variant is the most expensive, a little north of 100 mill, the air force is 70 ish or so. For perspective: F-22 - 180 million, Eurofighter Typhoon - 150 million, Su-35 - 90-120 million, Sea Stallion-K - 120 million. The F-35 is not only arguably the best jet fighter in the world, it's actually very cheap.
The price of a Sea Stallion is ridiculous. OK, it's a heli the size of a C-130 and I know the costs are just as much a matter of the production rate as the actual properties of the aircraft, but come on.
Ashctually ya'll could have a healthcare system and keep bloated war expenses if you bothered to regulate medical prices and slash down the enormous cost of these middlemen named insurance.
Yeah but then how are we going to "incentivize" warm bodies to join that military!? Gotta keep folks poor and desperate for that, we can't have poor kids feelin like they got OPTIONS, or they get uppity and start refusing to risk their lives for the murder machine.
Hilariously, it isn't. We can't have universal healthcare because insurance companies and pharma companies fight it. Single payer costs $32tn over a decade. Our current healthcare system costs $47 trillion. We don't need to spend more money to make it work, we get to save fifteen trillion over a decade, but...we can't even do that because of the insurance and for-profit healthcare lobbies.
Yes. It is. Fuck capitalism, capitalism means we get billionaires. Socialism doesn't permit that when there's no fucking CEOs and every business is a co-op or locally owned.
To be fair, the rooskie carrier is a pile of soviet rust that will never go to sea again, built as an off-brand of its counterpart on the left with the dream to be as stronk as them and to eventually have 6 units. China has the same one but completely remodernized. France or Italy alone have a better navy than Putin's.
Fun fact: it was stolen from Ukraine. Before the Soviet Union fell, a message was physically sent telling the captain of the kuznetsov what to do and to just keep it parked until further notice. Before that message could reach, another message was sent out with great haste telling the captain to leave port immediately. The USSR broke up and the ship was already in international waters with a Russian captain, effectively transferring ownership to them.
The contrast between the two is night and day though. The laioning is a fully functioning ship while the kuznetsov is a barely floating disaster kept alive as a symbol.
It costs closer to $40k, but that is also a misleading figure. A lot of people look at military spending like it's some black hole where money goes to die. The actual lost value here is pretty low. There's about $5k in fuel. The rest is going into jobs of some description. The guy is flying it. The people who fix it, the people who drive the vehicles to support it or who maintain the hangar. That's a lot of money and jobs being created right there. /1
The problem I have is that it's money and jobs for an industry that at the very end of the day is about killing people. I know we don't live in a perfect world, but I would rather we didn't spend billions on the killing machines before we spend it on social care programs. 2/2
No. It’s about the *capability* of killing people. That is an important difference. You are literally living in the longest era in human history without a major war sized with the technology of the times. It happened previously about once a generation. And the reason it hasn’t happened again ISNT that humanity suddenly evolved and grew beyond it. Hell, a lot of the developed world’s quality of life is based on US and NATO.
Yes, by and large because we spend so much on weapons we are unlikely to see major conflict. It doesnt stop me wishing that we could spend the money elsewhere first. I can still wish things were different even if the current sitation is one of the better alternatives.
I'm curious, what all goes into that cost? Is that just fuel or does it include the pay to the pilot and everyone coordinating to make each hour of flight happen and like pre/post flight maintenance?
For every hour of flight, it requires 4.4 man hours of maintenance... However, during that hour, the F35 burns 1,200 gallons of fuel (figure $5k for JET-A)... but that isn't the problem.
After that, I am not sure how they get to the total (it is a range $25k to $40k)
It will depend if they are in stealth config or not, the coatings are expensive as shit. This is clearly a training jet out of probably Langley? that refulled in middle river. Maybe from NJ?
Maintenance is a lot more expensive than just the cost of personnel and training (and the entire cost of personnel includes salary, housing, training, admin, etc etc). The consumables/testing/parts/etc become extremely pricey in a big hurry.
Source: corporate life, not military life. But it’s the same deal.
That's why you buy tickets in another country! I saw her in Lyon a few weeks ago and the whole city was packet with swiftie Americans who were able to go cheaper by buying concert tickets, international flights, and accommodations than seeing her in their home cities in the USA.
It's great to live in countries where there are legitimate consumer protections. But you do you, USA
My point is it's been cheaper to buy tickets for a T Swift concert overseas, and book travel, than to simply buy tickets in the US. Because you have proper consumer protections against touts (what Americans cringingly call "scalpers") buying up tickets en masse and reselling them at 10x have value, as is common in the USA.
friarRat
It cost that guy $200 dollars a minute, our tax dollars, for him to do that.
Rovit82
I’m so elated this is where all our taxes dollars go!
Ambipolar
When you've stepped into the kitchen and is all "wait.. what was I doing here again?"
trhopkins
Is he hoping to catch a homer with his canopy open?
Ijustwantquiet
This gives a new meaning to holding patterns.
arewenotkingsandqueenstogether
I just want healthcare
mercure
Cannot park there mate.
redtails2649
Those planes are awful noisy, even at idle mode. Very noticeable
BmoreBrewer
Yup. They actually stopped the game briefly because of the jet noise.
Tomcat1982
In case you were wondering, no, that plane doesn't cost $1B. That's a lie. The F-35B costs $109M per unit. Still sounds like a lot? Eh, not particularly.
F-16 (block 70/72) = $63M
Su-35 = $70M
FC-31 = $70M
F-35A (most common variant) = $80M
F-15EX = $80M
Gripen E = $85M
Typhoon = $90-140M
Rafale = $100-120M
J-20 = $100-120M
F-117 (in today's money) = $100M
F-35C = $102M
AC-130 = $130-170M
F-22 = $143M
F-14D (in today's money) = $170M
NGAD (projected) = $300M
C-17 = $340M
B-21 = $550M
B-2 = $2B
VibratingNipples
If i know my movies, there are terrorists in that building with a nuke
TheCriticsWereConciseItOnlyTookFourLines
If they find a good updraft, they can hang there for hours
Tarmaccian
If that particular bird can’t find an updraft, a KC-10 works, too.
marsgoose
Watching yearly tax contributions of about dozen middle class Americans burn up in hopes to convince kids to join and fight aimless forever wars started before they were born.
Fargus57
They left as soon as they saw the beer prices.
Eucrow
TIL we can do that kinda shit with planes
Sooner70
We've been able to do that kinda shit with planes for over 50 years....
Tarmaccian
That plane (F-35B) is STOVL: short takeoff, vertical landing. With low weight, it can hover like that and drop gently to land, allowing the Marines to use bombed-out runways without enough usable length for normal planes.
plinkey
it was a fun game to watch even on TV, the game basically stopped a few times because of fleet week flyovers and demonstrations.
DaDudeAbides
Iliekbirbs
Looks like the Baltimore Orioles park?
iamamentat
Camden Yards. Yup.
rollotherottie
thats why you can't have affordable healthcare
ArcUlfr
No, Republicans are why we can't have affordable healthcare. We spend more per capita on healthcare than Canada or the UK (by far, and possibly more than both combined), it's just all gobbled up by greedy fucking insurance companies, with a lot of it spent on bribing (sorry, I mean "lobbying") politicians to ensure that they maintain this status quo.
rollotherottie
i agree with you 100%
MisterBrahanovich
Is that the plane we spent 1.7 trillion dollars on and it only works like 40% of the time?
plinkey
No, more like 1.7 trillion. 1.7 billion is chump change. It works now though.
HypersonicHero
1.7 trillion is the lifetime cost. The F-15 program is around 5. And it's one of the best jet fighters in the world with a remarkably low accident/fatality rate. There is a reason why countries are climbing over each other to get one.
plinkey
It's not really a fighter, it's more of an all purpose attack, like the f16
OmnesMundiLardum
Cool cool, that's like saying, you're not a sword fighter you just shoot people from a distance.
HypersonicHero
The F-16 is a legendary fighter and it is a very common misconception that because it's a pretty good ground pounder it made it a poorer dogfighter. It wouldn't be until aircraft made two decades later we saw actual competition and even then the viper is a nightmarish opponent in BFM. An aggressor pilot once told me that fighting an F-16 is like having a knife fight in a telephone booth. Likewise the F-35 is an incredibly dirty knife fighter aerodynamically because of internal stores and a
HypersonicHero
Very very powerful engine. The most powerful to be fitted to a jet fighter, period. As powerful as three F-104's strapped together on afterburner. The internal carriage of missiles makes it very very agile. Most aircraft lose a lot of their agility when you actually start mounting missiles. The top speed of an F-16 drops by almost 1/3 with four AMRAAMs and two sidewinders. The MiG29 can't break Mach with a fuel tank.
Sebastopol140
LordofSadFace
The building on the background also made me think of True Lies
BHPaperstacks
I haven't seen this movie in sooo long
onlymostofthetime
it still holds up
OnlyByMoonlight
Sebastopol140
outoftheshadows
My house is between the stadium and where it was hovering! Very cool, but yes, I would prefer free healthcare.
lysani
The US has enough money to keep its current military budget *and* provide free healthcare.
plinkey
It's not a zero sum game.
Kyen155
film888master9
Probably looking for Bane
tomatoboy
For those wondering, it was a demo for Fleet Week. https://apnews.com/article/phillies-orioles-fleet-week-planes-flyovers-428ab16fea116bd06964a91eeb3b5772
mangoinparis
Fleet week
tomatoboy
https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/3517054/the-orioles-and-phillies-had-a-fighter-jet-timeout-during-yesterdays-game-and-it-was-awesome
ScootiePuffJrSucks
Is the camera's shutter spend synced to the plane flapping its wings?
SubiBryant
I know each on costs close to a billi but that's so fucking cool.
[deleted]
[deleted]
Sooner70
And they'll beat a 767 in a dog fight EVERY TIME!
KittenInside
Getting cheaper every day. The purchase cost is under 100 mil these days.
ThisGostakIsHereForTheDoshes
Banging out one every two days with about a 1000 already existing does that for your prices. Pretty crazy numbers, actually.
KittenInside
It helped when Russia single-handedly doubled the order numbers.
Tomcat1982
That's not correct. These days, it costs $109M to make an F-35B.
The most common F-35 variant is currently $80M per plane, same as an F-15EX and cheaper than a new Rafale, Typhoon, or Gripen E.
plinkey
closer to 140 mil
Tomcat1982
That cost is only from early production runs. As of Dec. 2023, each F-35B (like the one hovering in this video) costs $109M. Seems overpriced, but let's compare to other modern military aircraft:
F-16 (block 70) = $63M
Su-35 = $70M
FC-31 = $70M
F-35A (most common variant) = $80
F-15EX = $80M
Gripen E = $85M
Typhoon = $90-140M
Rafale = $100-120M
J-20 = $100-120M
F-35C (Navy variant) = $102M
F-22 = $143M
F-14D (in today's money) = $170M
NGAD (projected) = $300M
C-17 = $340M
B-21 = $550M
B-2 = $2B
SubiBryant
Oh shit, my bad. Give me two!
HypersonicHero
Depends on the vintage but none of them are remotely close to that expensive. This marine variant is the most expensive, a little north of 100 mill, the air force is 70 ish or so. For perspective: F-22 - 180 million, Eurofighter Typhoon - 150 million, Su-35 - 90-120 million, Sea Stallion-K - 120 million. The F-35 is not only arguably the best jet fighter in the world, it's actually very cheap.
ThisGostakIsHereForTheDoshes
The price of a Sea Stallion is ridiculous. OK, it's a heli the size of a C-130 and I know the costs are just as much a matter of the production rate as the actual properties of the aircraft, but come on.
greenchair
Ppl make such cool shit to kill each other. So many technical problems solved
SubiBryant
Right? Samuel Colt is an icon.
Goldensands
You and everyone commenting you deserve to live in america.
70ikketje2000
Sorry to inform you, but the amount of about US$ 100.000.000 buys you one F-35B . That's 10 for US$ 1.000.000.000.
dumbledong69
I know Angel Hernandez was a terrible ump but an air strike on his last day seems dramatic
CommentMalone
...but worth it
wibbIywobbIytimeywimey
He still wouldve missed it
stevelepastis
coffeeandprozac
This made me chuckle.
plainoldfool
That's racist!
dumbledong69
Hey man, take it up with the union
callmeMrGawd
bippityboppitybuttsex
Marines are weird.
plinkey
He had plenty of crayons to snack on in the cockpit.
buttcheeksandwiches
… dude, who the fuck ate all the good colors and replaced them with brown?
PineappleLoopsBroether
buy me some pornos and crayons, jack. I don't give a fuck if we ever go back
wibbIywobbIytimeywimey
Lmao you think marines get to fly those???
tomatoboy
The F-35B is operated solely by the US Marine Corps in US service. The pilots who fly them are Marine Corps Aviators, not Navy pilots.
DanielAsparagus
They do! If they’re pilots.
bippityboppitybuttsex
Yes, the VTOL F35B... so they can take them off from their Tarawa-class LHAs.
ImpossibleAgenda
STOVL, not VTOL
bippityboppitybuttsex
https://youtu.be/zW28Mb1YvwY
HaveYouHuggedYourUndertakerToday
Marines do have aviators.
Wickingsham
I saw something recently that said "Leave it to the USA to give their navy an army... and then give that army an air force."
chrisckelly
r/confidentlyincorrect
kevlarburrito
Swing and a miss
PineappleLoopsBroether
saaawing batter batter
VitaminJay
This is why we can't have universal healthcare.
Tomcat1982
Do you really believe that if the US military hadn't updated their aging jet fighter fleet with F-35s that the US would have universal healthcare?
VitaminJay
I really, truly, genuinely don't give a shit what the military industrial complex thinks it needs.
ItsACrazyWorld
Really..? This is the reason..?
Fedotia
Ashctually ya'll could have a healthcare system and keep bloated war expenses if you bothered to regulate medical prices and slash down the enormous cost of these middlemen named insurance.
Skevoid
Universal healthcare costs less than the current healthcare system. We could waste more money on the military if we had universal healthcare!
Dajova
Well, money alone was never the issue. it's privatising it for profit and to squeeze as much money from the poors as possible that is.
VitaminJay
(your logic is drowned out by the sound of 'freedom'...)
YouAreTheInsultMaster
oh. carry on then!
aquietwhyme
Yeah but then how are we going to "incentivize" warm bodies to join that military!? Gotta keep folks poor and desperate for that, we can't have poor kids feelin like they got OPTIONS, or they get uppity and start refusing to risk their lives for the murder machine.
Raziel420
If only they could read.
idiotsonfire
Hilariously, it isn't. We can't have universal healthcare because insurance companies and pharma companies fight it. Single payer costs $32tn over a decade. Our current healthcare system costs $47 trillion. We don't need to spend more money to make it work, we get to save fifteen trillion over a decade, but...we can't even do that because of the insurance and for-profit healthcare lobbies.
ztygs
Healthcare without the exploitation and for profit industry between the patient and the healthcare? Why that sounds like filthy socialism.
idiotsonfire
Yes. It is. Fuck capitalism, capitalism means we get billionaires. Socialism doesn't permit that when there's no fucking CEOs and every business is a co-op or locally owned.
VitaminJay
Consider: they have home addresses. We could take some bullhorns and make a ruckus...
Nengex
OH. You said -bullhorns-. I thought you said...something else.
VitaminJay
I'm avoiding a 'HI THERE!' from Imgur...
DarkSock
Fedotia
To be fair, the rooskie carrier is a pile of soviet rust that will never go to sea again, built as an off-brand of its counterpart on the left with the dream to be as stronk as them and to eventually have 6 units. China has the same one but completely remodernized. France or Italy alone have a better navy than Putin's.
DarkSock
Hell… Ukraine has a better Navy than Putin's… And they don't even have a navy.
MisterLemons
Fun fact: it was stolen from Ukraine. Before the Soviet Union fell, a message was physically sent telling the captain of the kuznetsov what to do and to just keep it parked until further notice. Before that message could reach, another message was sent out with great haste telling the captain to leave port immediately. The USSR broke up and the ship was already in international waters with a Russian captain, effectively transferring ownership to them.
DarkSock
… And they literally would've been money ahead of they had just left it in Port at Ukraine. It is a low slump pile of post Taco Bell and tequila shit.
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
Good riddance. Ukraine's pro-Russia govt sold the hull that was to become its sister to China who turned it into their first carrier.
MisterLemons
The contrast between the two is night and day though. The laioning is a fully functioning ship while the kuznetsov is a barely floating disaster kept alive as a symbol.
glovelyday
Watching the game at about $278,000 per hour.
Rkfinecake
That really impacts your mpg.
ErudiousRex
Cost less then Star Wars Acolyte... ;)
davidseavey726
Thank you my thoughts exactly
EccentricNut
They gotta fly anyway for training, may as well score some recruiting points
MaverickTitan
Most expensive seat in the house.
Vergenbuurg
That's enough for about four stadium franks.
InvalidAsh
Whoa there no need to flex that you get a discount now
pompoikpoik
what would be the miles-per-gallon consumption ?
glovelyday
You mean gallons per mile?
terajack2048
Somewhere between a buttload and a shitton
BigRobbo
It costs closer to $40k, but that is also a misleading figure. A lot of people look at military spending like it's some black hole where money goes to die. The actual lost value here is pretty low. There's about $5k in fuel. The rest is going into jobs of some description. The guy is flying it. The people who fix it, the people who drive the vehicles to support it or who maintain the hangar. That's a lot of money and jobs being created right there. /1
BigRobbo
The problem I have is that it's money and jobs for an industry that at the very end of the day is about killing people. I know we don't live in a perfect world, but I would rather we didn't spend billions on the killing machines before we spend it on social care programs. 2/2
armagetz
No. It’s about the *capability* of killing people. That is an important difference. You are literally living in the longest era in human history without a major war sized with the technology of the times. It happened previously about once a generation. And the reason it hasn’t happened again ISNT that humanity suddenly evolved and grew beyond it. Hell, a lot of the developed world’s quality of life is based on US and NATO.
BigRobbo
Yes, by and large because we spend so much on weapons we are unlikely to see major conflict. It doesnt stop me wishing that we could spend the money elsewhere first. I can still wish things were different even if the current sitation is one of the better alternatives.
bippityboppitybuttsex
Stop exaggerating... the F35 only costs $40,000 per flight hour.
plinkey
So, one natty Bph in Camden yards?
backrideup9
Gas is not that expensive. Flight mechanics don't make $1000/hr+. Half of that cost has got to be uninvolved management types.
PanNonOpticon
Fly, not hover. I bet hover flight hour is a lot more. Not only in fuel but it's running parts that aren't designed to be run a lot of hours.
Badprenup
I'm curious, what all goes into that cost? Is that just fuel or does it include the pay to the pilot and everyone coordinating to make each hour of flight happen and like pre/post flight maintenance?
Fedotia
The issue with US army is that they always go for the most expensive options. The coffee cup alone in a F-35 costs a grand just for the part.
RedIronCrown
The US Army doesn't operate F35s.
bippityboppitybuttsex
For every hour of flight, it requires 4.4 man hours of maintenance... However, during that hour, the F35 burns 1,200 gallons of fuel (figure $5k for JET-A)... but that isn't the problem.
After that, I am not sure how they get to the total (it is a range $25k to $40k)
plinkey
It will depend if they are in stealth config or not, the coatings are expensive as shit. This is clearly a training jet out of probably Langley? that refulled in middle river. Maybe from NJ?
OverwhelmingSurplusOfDiggity
Maintenance is a lot more expensive than just the cost of personnel and training (and the entire cost of personnel includes salary, housing, training, admin, etc etc). The consumables/testing/parts/etc become extremely pricey in a big hurry.
Source: corporate life, not military life. But it’s the same deal.
bippityboppitybuttsex
I would assume the 4.4 man hours would include all associated sundries...
HerrHat
Also allocate some for wear, and you gotta finance the thing somehow. You gotta pay the jet payments or the repos are gonna get ya jet.
bippityboppitybuttsex
Money is made up.
genericname1
The plane costs $$$$ and is rated for a specific lifetime. $$$$ / lifetime = $$$/hr
100m to buy and a lifetime of about 8000 hours
RedIronCrown
Plane cost isn't included in hourly operation cost. The 40k/hr is purely the maintenance, fuel, and crew.
Johnsky
Man, that's as cheap as a Taylor Swift concert on Ticketmaster.
gluttonygreedpridewrathslothlustenvy
That's why you buy tickets in another country! I saw her in Lyon a few weeks ago and the whole city was packet with swiftie Americans who were able to go cheaper by buying concert tickets, international flights, and accommodations than seeing her in their home cities in the USA.
It's great to live in countries where there are legitimate consumer protections. But you do you, USA
Kehy
I mean you also have to be able to afford to travel, that's the real issue.
gluttonygreedpridewrathslothlustenvy
My point is it's been cheaper to buy tickets for a T Swift concert overseas, and book travel, than to simply buy tickets in the US. Because you have proper consumer protections against touts (what Americans cringingly call "scalpers") buying up tickets en masse and reselling them at 10x have value, as is common in the USA.
Courier87
How do we know the F35 isn't Taylor just popping in from next door to see the game?
NirvanaNik
*angry Pearl Jam noises*
Zetor
It costs $400.000 to fly this plane... For 10 hours
1BadPanda
And that's before AI took our jobs.
Tigaernach
M34665
$400 that isn't too bad
M34665
(for the love of god I hope people know im joking and don't have to explaion that other places use a . instead of a , in bigger numbers)
plinkey
...and?
AbdulMasaiev
...? It's a TF2 reference. A joke.
plinkey
No, shit like this is expensive, who do you think engineers and builds it, maintains it and refules it?