Predicted Australian Defence cost per flying hour - 2015-2016 budget

This isn't every airframe. Just a snapshot of what Australian Defence predicts for flying hours over the 2015-2016 budget. Then you have to go to the organisation formally known as the "DMO" to get sustainment dollars for the airframe.

Aircraft / flying hours for 2015-2016 / cost per flying hour

Classic Hornet / 12,000 / $20,250
Super Hornet / 5200 / $34,615
C-130J / 7350 / $17,006
C-17 / 6200 / $12,742
KC-30A / 3100 / $21,613
P-3 / 6770 / $17,725
Wedgtail / 3600 / $59,444
SH-60R / 3400 / $28,529
MRH-90 / 7100 / $23,000
ARH / 5846 / $20,356

Some thoughts.

Compare the cost per flying hour to a few years ago. The value of the Australian dollar may have some impact. All the more reason to have systems that depend more on home resources than foreign resources. The Entrenched Defence Bureaucracy needs to be sharper on having new platforms compete for the privilege of the Australian taxpayer's investment. But I guess that would actually mean some work. Like taking already existing risk management manuals on requirement definition, acquisition and procurement and well, not only reading them but taking those processes to heart.

Based on what I have observed, I suspect it is just easier to lie to Senate Estimates each year telling them "poor old, little me" stories and that it is everyone else's fault.

Super Hornet cost per flying hour has historically been on a continuous rise over its service life in the RAAF. This latest figure is the most dramatic. Only recently has the classic Hornet gone up.

The C-130 carries much less than a C-17 but is way more expensive to fly. Someone better look at sustainment contracts again. This is a problem.

Note the P-3 and the Wedgetail (based on a 737 airframe). These numbers will be important to watch once the underdeveloped P-8 (also a 737 airframe) gets in service. The P-8 better deliver significantly more capability than a P-3 when looking at cost per flight hour.

Helicopters. What can be said but, to start over again with a blank sheet of paper? The SH-60R is new for Australia so give it a bit of time? Don't know. The MRH-90 and ARH figures look optimistic since they actually have to match that number of flying hours on the chart. With poor reliability, will they get those hours? If so, log it as an improvement. Both these platforms need to be scrapped but, here we are.

The organisation formerly known as the "DMO" has this to say in the 2015-2016 budget:

"While tiger reliability, availability and maintainability continue to improve, rate of effort is affected by the low rate of availability of aircraft with fully serviceable mission equipment due to poor but improving contracted susstanment support and the requirement of unscheduled maintenance.

MRH90 Taipan experienced a minor underfly in 2014-15 due to the late delivery of aircraft from the production line."

Yeah...I get it.


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Australian Defence Reading List

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it."

-Mark Twain

-Australia's diminishing RAAF
-Defence may want to waste money on more defective M-1 tanks.
-Collins sub replacement appears to be a rigged game
-New Defence White Paper fails to address Australia's core security needs
-2009 Defence White Paper Fantasy
-Analysing "The ADF Air Combat Capability- On the Record"
-Find out who is responsible for the Air Warfare Destroyer mess
-Analysis of Defence Materiel Organisation Major Projects Management and What Needs to be Fixed
-New DMO Boss warns the staff that business as usual is over
-How dangerous is the Defence Material Organisation to our Defence Industry?
-Australia's Failing Defence Structure and Management Methodology
-More on the dud-jamming gear Defence wants to buy
-ADF cost per flying hour
-I will wipe out bullying vows new Defence chief (Houston 2005)
-Vacancy
-Put Vol 2 Report of DLA Piper Review into the light of day
-Rory and Jim
-Parasitism as an Abstraction for Organizational Dysfunctions
-Hobart-class "Air Warfare Destroyer" to be fielded with obsolete radar guidance technology
-The Decay Of Critical Military Thinking And Writing-With Particular Reference To The RAAF
-The great M-1 tank myth
-*UPDATE* Fear and loathing in Canberra - Audit released on MRH-90 helicopter project 
-RAN bullies contractor over Collins sub replacement
-2014-15 ADF budget shocker - Star-ranks
-Air Warfare Destroyer -- Billions, not millions over budget
-Australia's M-1 tanks are... a downgrade compared to what it had
-Weak links put on rubber-stamp Defence panel
-Insert Joke Here
-Tyranny of distance--Long, drawn out helicopter projects are unsustainable
-2014-15 ADF budget shocker - cost per flying hour over the last budget year
-Tiger savaged by Navy League of Australia
-Tiger helicopter update
-PDF file - Exploring the Impacts of the Defence Trade Controls Act 2012
-Dangerous minds: Are maths teachers Australia's newest threat?
-Government ignores its own 'rescue' report created to fix Air Warfare Destroyer woes
-DM Johnston fired in cabinet reshuffle