DOD Fixed-wing Aircraft Spending Shrinking

While fixed-wing aircraft spending still remains perched at the top of the list of leading Pentagon expenses, it is shrinking as a percentage of overall military spending, an Aerospace DAILY analysis shows.

At the same time, fixed-wing aircraft contracts are becoming fewer and more expensive, according to the analysis of data gleaned from a federal contracting database released by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting.

Fixed-wing spending accounted for 14 percent of the top 21 Defense Department expenses, compared to 16 percent in 2007 and 22 percent in 2001. Healthcare costs, meanwhile, are taking a bigger bite of the pie (Aerospace DAILY, Feb. 23).

For 2008, the Pentagon tallied about 1,841 fixed-wing aircraft contracts and modifications for a total of about $18.6 billion. That’s a mere $200 million – or about 1 percent – more than the Pentagon rang up for those expenses in 2007, when the Defense Department reported 2,191 transactions, the analysis shows. (See charts pp. 6-7.)

The mean, or average, cost per contract or modification in 2008 was about $10.1 million, compared to a mean 2007 cost per transaction of about $8.4 million, an estimated 20 percent increase. The average for all 1.5 million 2008 Pentagon transactions is about $236,000 per transaction.