Conventional wisdom holds that UASs cost less than manned aircraft because they do not need life support equipment such as oxygen systems, cabin pressurization, and ejection seats. However, an earlier CBO analysis noted that the magnitude of UASs’ cost advantages was uncertain.
… When estimating life-cycle costs per flying hour, CBO included both acquisition and recurring costs. Considering the following factors, CBO found that the life-cycle costs per flying hour of the RQ-4 and P-8 are about $35,200 and $42,300, respectively; that 17 percent difference is much smaller than the estimated 38 percent difference in recurring costs for the two aircraft:
- Flying Hours. The RQ-4 averaged 945 flying hours per aircraft per year between 2014 and 2018. The P-8 SAR projects an average of 589 flying hours per aircraft per year, about 40 percent fewer than the RQ-4—although the P-8 fleet has had more flying hours in recent years.
- Attrition. The RQ-4 fleet has suffered a higher rate of attrition: Between 1994 and 2019, RQ-4s were destroyed at a rate of 23 aircraft per million flying hours, whereas the Navy has not lost a single P-8 to date. (The UAS accident rate has fallen over time.)
- Operating Costs. Between 2014 and 2018, RQ-4s had a recurring cost per flying hour of about $18,700, or 62 percent of the projected cost of about $29,900 for the P-8.
- Acquisition Costs. The RQ-4 was also less expensive to purchase. It had an average acquisition cost of $239 million per aircraft compared with $307 million for a P-8.
That was from a nice Congressional Budget Office report, Usage Patterns and Costs of
Unmanned Aerial Systems. It is short and there are interesting charts throughout.
In the analysis, CBO found the average recurring cost per flying hour to be significantly lower for the MQ-1 and MQ-9 UASs, as well as the turboprop manned aircraft RC-26 (roughly $5,000 or less per flying hour), and significantly higher for the E-8 JSTARS ($100,000 per flying hour).
But the main point was to go after lifecycle costs per flying hour to put the comparison on a more equal footing. And in any case, an MQ-9 has quite a different mission than an E-8 JSTARS.
For the Global Hawk vs. P-8 case study, cost savings for the unmanned aircraft may fall by roughly half relative to just looking at operations and support costs.
The interesting thing about that analysis is if you looked at the O&S cost on per flying hour basis, then separately look at PAUC acquisition costs on a unit basis, you’d find Global Hawk lower on both counts and so you’d expect the gap in lifecycle cost per flying hour to increase. Instead, it decreased!
CBO mentions the comparison still isn’t fair because it can’t assess value differences, such as the latency with UASs. The P-8 O&S data is also early in its usable life, so that perhaps biases its lifecycle costs downward relative to what is expected (while E-8, E-3, U-2, and KC-135 would’ve been too high had the analysis been performed for them).
One thing that could have been useful is information on each aircraft’s payload, speed, endurance, etc. Certainly the P-8 can carry more equipment than a Global Hawk, which has a payload of 3,000 lbs. But then there’s also an advantage to lower lifespans of UASs for faster refresh cycles, in addition to not risking a human in the mission.
Perhaps the best comparison would have been looking at the E-11A and the EQ-4B, which both perform the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node mission, and then follow up with a qualitative assessment of the differences using interviews with the operators.
Leave a Reply