You'll Never Believe How Much It Costs To Fly U.S. Military Aircraft

Most people know that the United States spends a lot on its military, seeing as it's the most funded in the world. The Department of Defense's budget request for 2024 was $842 billion, which buys a lot of bullets and bandages. It also helps purchase and maintain the United States' massive fleet of aircraft. Every service operates a variety of planes, helicopters, and drones, and their operating costs are considerable.

It may cost a good chunk of change to buy an F-35 (between $110.3 and $135.8 million, depending on the model), but keeping it in the air is another thing altogether. Maintaining a fleet of advanced aircraft is expensive. You have to consider the cost of personnel, which consists of everything from training and housing to uniforms and the cost of moving from one place to another. In addition to personnel costs, fuel, and maintenance are expensive, often amounting to thousands of dollars for every flight hour.

Everything from the F-22 Raptor and B-1B Lancer to the B-2 Spirit and E-4B Nightwatch require tons of cash to operate, but the amounts are staggering. Of the U.S. Air Force's 10 most expensive aircraft to operate, the bottom number sits at $41,986, according to a 2022 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. Essentially, it costs almost as much as most people in the U.S. make per year to fly the F-35 Raptor for a single hour, and that's just the beginning of the cost breakdown.

The F-35A Lightning II is the most advanced fighter aircraft in the world, and it costs $41,986 to fly for an hour. The U.S. operates around 630 F-35s of varying models. The F-35 surpassed 824,000 flight hours in April 2024, and that number will only increase over time. Still, that's not a small amount, nor is the $57,508 required to keep the C-5M Super Galaxy in the air. The Super Galaxy is the largest aircraft in the U.S. Air Force's inventory.

 The CV-22 Osprey, which is a tilt-rotor aircraft capable of operating like a plane or helicopter, costs $79,958 per hour. The aircraft passed the 500,000 flight hour mark in October 2019, and the U.S. fleet consists of more than 400 CV-22 Ospreys.

The F-22 Raptor's cost to operate for an hour as of November 2022 is $85,325, and the U.S. has 186 in its inventory. In June 2024, the F-22 Raptor hit a milestone, achieving a collective 500,000 flight hours, which took 25 years to reach. The Government Accountability Office noted the maintenance cost for each F-22 at $12.56 million, so a lot of money has been invested in the aircraft. 

The B-52 Stratofortress costs $88,354 for a single hour of operation. It's difficult to say how many total hours B-52s have flown, but the oldest in the fleet passed 21,000 hours in 2021.  From there, costs only increase, as RC-135S-W Cobra Ball costs $95,339 per flight hour. The E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS), which is used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, costs much more than the B-52, coming in at $120,137 per hour. The JSTARS is now retired, but throughout its service record, it collectively flew 141,000 hours.

Going back to strategic bombers, the B-2 Spirit is quite expensive, clocking in at $150,741 to operate for an hour. In 2013, a B-2 surpassed 7,000 flight hours, so the aircraft has seen extensive use. The Air Force operates 19 B-2 Spirits, which will eventually be replaced by the B-21 Raider, which is a more technologically advanced aircraft. Next, the B-1B Lancer, which is a conventional bomber, requires $173,014 to fly for an hour. The bomber entered service in the 1980s, and the U.S. had 45 operating as of April 2024.

Finally, the most expensive aircraft maintained and operated by the U.S. Air Force is the E-4 Nightwatch, better known as the Doomsday Plane. The E-4 Nightwatch is a Command and Control (C2) aircraft capable of maintaining executive control of the military during a potential nuclear war, and it's been hardened to survive being near a nuclear detonation. It costs a staggering $372,496 per hour to operate, and there are four in the inventory.