The more it costs the better it is?

[Walsingham]

Summary.  We found no clear link between the cost of either aircraft

or weapon system and their performance in Desert Storm.  Aircraft

total program unit cost does not appear to have been strongly

positively or negatively correlated with survivability rates, sortie

rates or costs, average daily tonnage per aircraft, or success ratio

of unguided-to-guided munition deliveries.  No high-cost aircraft

demonstrated superior performance in all, or even most, measures, and

no low-cost aircraft was generally inferior.  On some measures

low-cost aircraft performed better than the high-cost ones (such as

sortie rate, sortie cost); on some measures, the performance of low-

and high-cost aircraft was indistinguishable (such as survivability

and participation against targets with successful outcomes).

 

 

I was reading the 1997 proceeding of the US General Audit Office (as one does on a Friday night) and found the above quote.

 

I thought it was rather interesting. Expensive planes aren't better? Crikey, I thought to myself. I wonder if its true, and if so whether it applies elsewhere.

[Gfted1]

The way I read that is that there is no discernable difference between aircraft total program unit cost when considering ground attack roles against an enemy (Iraq) whos AA capabilities have been decimated. Well, duh. IMO, thats a very skewed look at a program when you take into consideration there was almost zero dogfighting and by the time the older ground attack aircraft were brought to bear, almost no anti-aircraft defences left.

[Oerwinde]

Well, that sorta happened with Sony for a while. They built the best home electronics for years, built up a name, then started making crap while still charging the most for their products. People still bought them because they were sony, but they weren't nearly the quality of old sony. Once people realized that their new stuff was crap and started shifting to Toshiba and Panasonic, Sony got their act together and their stuff is now good again.

[Enoch]

I was reading the 1997 proceeding of the US General Audit Office (as one does on a Friday night) and found the above

You mean the General Accounting Office. That was the name in '97. A couple years ago, they changed it to the "Government Accountability Office." (They got tired of constantly explaining that they do more than accounting, particularly when they were trying to recruit new employees.)

 

GAO website.

[Gorgon]

As a general technical observation, the more it costs the less you get for your money

[Diamond]

My general observation is that cost depends on a multitude of factors such as demand, technologies used, and volume of production. Quality as well, but after you take into account all other factors.

[taks]

i think the test criteria are not all that "objective," either. in particular, there are certain functions that higher cost aircraft are designed to do, which the lower cost aircraft simply cannot do. when we stack them up against each other in functions they BOTH can do, however, i'm not surprised that they perform equally well. can the GAO truly say that when looking at function specific applications? can it say that when the environment (well, theater) is such that the benefits of the high cost aircraft are more noticeable (e.g. flying into a theater where the defense systems are not decimated as meta noted)?

 

taks

[Walsingham]

The way I read that is that there is no discernable difference between aircraft total program unit cost when considering ground attack roles against an enemy (Iraq) whos AA capabilities have been decimated. Well, duh. IMO, thats a very skewed look at a program when you take into consideration there was almost zero dogfighting and by the time the older ground attack aircraft were brought to bear, almost no anti-aircraft defences left.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I agree with this and taks observations. If your opponent is effectively supine then you don't need a high spec aircraft.

[metadigital]

(e.g. flying into a theater where the defense systems are not decimated as meta noted)?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I wish I'd said that.

 

* insert riposte from James McNeill Whistler to Oscar Wilde *

[taks]

oh, apologies... Gfted1 said that. thanks for catching that, meta.

 

taks

[SamuraiGaijin]

It's fairly obvious that the original quote is about cargo aircraft (and not, for example, attack or fighter aircraft) ... the obvious follow up question would be, "what make the expensive aircraft more expensive?" ... advanced navigation and avionics, integrated and automated self defense systems, etc. ... in an environment where GPS works, where air defense is not sophisticated, a low-cost C-130 is going to out-perform a high-cost C-17, strictly from a tons-per-dollar standpoint, because the C-130 is less expensive to fly and maintain.

 

From a general technology standpoint, there is a point of diminishing returns, where the best widget costs 200% of the average widget, with only a 150% (or less) of the performance. It's not that much different than building or buying a computer, top-end performance costs alot ... how much of that performance you really need is up to the guy paying the bill.

[Gfted1]

It's fairly obvious that the original quote is about cargo aircraft (and not, for example, attack or fighter aircraft)

 

 

How did you come to that conclusion with a statement like this right in the snippet Walshingham provided?

 

...or success ratio of unguided-to-guided munition deliveries.