{"id":5381,"date":"2013-12-26T11:38:26","date_gmt":"2013-12-26T15:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=5381"},"modified":"2013-12-26T11:38:26","modified_gmt":"2013-12-26T15:38:26","slug":"u-s-military-saves-taxpayer-dollars-by-replacing-300000-helicopters-with-6-million-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/26\/u-s-military-saves-taxpayer-dollars-by-replacing-300000-helicopters-with-6-million-ones\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. military saves taxpayer dollars by replacing $300,000 helicopters with $6 million ones"},"content":{"rendered":"

A friend sent me this ArmyTimes<\/em> article<\/a> about the U.S. Army “cutting costs” by replacing old Bell JetRanger<\/a> helicopters (the civilian 206B equivalents are available in airworthy condition for $300,000 to $500,000).<\/p>\n

For active duty, the $300,000 single-engine machines will be replaced with $20 million twin-engine Apache helicopters<\/a>. For primary training, students will learn to hover in $6 million twin-engine Eurocopter EC-145s (the “Lakota”<\/a>). After you’ve paid the $6 million, what do these cost to run? Back in 2011 Conklin and de Decker estimated nearly $1200 per hour (source<\/a>), i.e., nearly triple the cost of the EC120, a modern equivalent to the JetRangers that will be retiring.<\/p>\n

[What do other countries do for primary training, you might ask? \u00a0Some\u00a0have decided to use the Robinson R44, whose brand new purchase cost is about $350,000 and whose direct operating costs are about $200 per hour. Where 100LL gasoline is impractical to obtain and brand new helicopters are desired, the jet-powered Robinson R66 is getting some military sales. These are about $800,000 to purchase with direct operating costs of perhaps $350-400 per hour.]<\/p>\n

If this really does save money, I think our flight school needs to look into getting rid of our single-engine Piper Warriors ($30,000 to $80,000 in value, depending on vintage and engine time; about $85 per hour in operating cost). We could replace them with brand-new twin-engine jet-powered airplanes that cost $800 per hour to operate and then reduce our prices for customers.<\/p>\n

Related: July 2010 posting<\/a> about the Port Authority of New York operating Sikorsky S-76 helicopters for $15,500 per hour when the mission could have been done for $400 per hour in an R44.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend sent me this ArmyTimes article about the U.S. Army “cutting costs” by replacing old Bell JetRanger helicopters (the civilian 206B equivalents are available in airworthy condition […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nU.S. military saves taxpayer dollars by replacing $300,000 helicopters with $6 million ones - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/26\/u-s-military-saves-taxpayer-dollars-by-replacing-300000-helicopters-with-6-million-ones\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"U.S. military saves taxpayer dollars by replacing $300,000 helicopters with $6 million ones - 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