Airforce aircraft flying times?

[flying55]

Which aircraft in the australian airforce has the most flying time (is in the air most often)?

[jas24zzk]

The Simulators :\

[SgtBundy]

I swear the RAAF website used to have some little factoid about this somewhere but I cannot seem to find it now.

Last time I saw it (I think this was pre C-17s) the top aircraft were the Hercs by a long shot - like 3-4 times the hours of the next most used aircraft. The jets were a long way down the list.

[layman]

It depends on what you mean by "the most flying time"? Do you mean time in the air, or time spent on flying activities e.g. preparing, flying, debriefing?

[Clearedtoreenter]

Would be interesting to know which types have the highest maintenance hours to flying hours too... and how that compares with Civil types.

[rocket66]

Off topic I know but at the last Avalon Airshow that the F111s were displayed. A crew chief told us that they were around $140000 per hour to operate! :eek:

Doss that spund right to anyone else?

[Trojan1981]

You can find all of this information in the Defence Annual Reports online.
I believe the Hercs and P-3s smashed everything else in the inventory by a long way. Last time I looked they were exceeding their planned hours.

Other types (especially the FJs) were not meeting their targets due servicability issues. Still, the utilisation of each airframe is well below what you would expect in an airline, for many reasons.

[SgtBundy]

Back in about 96 I was told that in total one hour of flying time for a hornet was about $30K - with the age and structural work for the F-111s I could imagine the $140k could be a fair number.

[hadagutful]

Heard an ex FA/18 jockey say in an interview the other day that it was $75,000 per hour flying rate for the Hornet.
That was probably everything costed in, fixed and variable costs and all back up staff etc.
Not cheap for the taxpayer.
Also he mentioned a couple of hours flight planning and briefing and post flight 3 or 4 hours debriefing and analysing the flight, also part of the cost.
But no doubt the P3 Orions, C130's and C17's take up most of the flying hours.

[FoxtrotAlpha18]

It depends what you include and amortise over that flying hour.

The number generally bandied about for the Hornet is $25K which takes into account fuel & consumables, crewing, maintenance, spares etc. I heard reliable numbers north of $150K for the F-111 in its twilight years, although anecdotally this number dropped considerably during surges as the Pig just loved to be flown. :ok:

NREs, facilities, sims, tech pubs, training, upgrades and staffing are not included in this number.

[Trojan1981]

There is something amiss in the way Defence costs flying hours.

There is no way a Blackhawk costs more than $27k per hour, but that's the published rate... :suspect:

[aussie027]

foxtrot and trojan are right, the figure depends on what is included.

Some of those figures mentioned here obviously include the cost of having half the airforce infrastructure and personnel as well in place which is a somewhat ridiculous way of allocating costs.

Flying hour costs should be simply stated as fixed "directly relevant" annual costs divided by estimated or actual annual hours and direct operating costs/hr added together.

Eg- If your annual maint costs are $50K for the work actually required on your aircraft then that is it, $50K.
You don't take into account that your MRO company has and staffs a $30 million building/facility and add that cost on top of your $50K bill when you work out your costs.

That cost is a fixed cost of the MRO which they cover/recover in what they charge you per hour for your maint etc.
Obviously the ADF is entirely funded by the taxpayer so "we" end up ultimately paying for it all anyway but it needs to be reported for all aircraft types via the same method/ formula. Preferably one like I have stated above that most of the world generally uses AFAIK.

[dat581]

I caught the tail end of the same interview on Thursday night while driving to work. It was on ABC radio (country driving so no other station was in range!) at about 2200-0000. I'm pretty sure the bloke was called Mac Tucker so any RAAF guys here will know who he is. Will be getting his book when available.

Just thinking about fuel an F/A-18A has an internal capacity of almost 5000kg which is roughly 6250L of avtur, at roughly $1.50L is $9375 which the jet can get through in less than an hour if the pilot so desires. That's alot of tax dollars but i'd rather see my tax go to training knucks than wasted on green schemes and other government rubbish.

[DutchRoll]

That's alot of tax dollars but i'd rather see my tax go to training knucks than wasted on green schemes and other government rubbish.
If you knew how much taxpayer money we totally wasted on "stuff" during my 16 years flying in the RAAF, you would probably modify that view!

But then, we didn't care at the time. Something about being young & naive.

[Aussie]

Only did 5 in the RAAF Dutchroll, but ill second that view!!!! Too True...:{