"Resource For Cold War Aircraft Costs?" Topic

Anyone know where I can find what the costs would be to customers buying aircraft from the Soviet Union, US and other vendors (China, France, UK) during the cold war in currencies at the time they were purchased?

I'm working on a project and would love to find a source for this info. I found a site that lists some aircraft from the US, but it's really limited and doesn't list any of the other nation's aircraft. link

Any pointers would be appreciated.

If you go through the PDFs on the site you linked to, there are plenty of references to non-U.S. aircraft.

This is very difficult to get a hand on because many deals were shrouded in secrecy, prices included very different things (airframes only, aircraft only, aircraft plus weapons, aircraft plus parts, aircraft plus parts and weapons, aircraft plus parts, weapons, and training), and various trade concessions and offsets. For example:

Draken, Saab J35 XD
Discussion – Denmark has bought 20 Draken fighter-bombers, equipped at a cost of $61 USD million
1968

Soviet prices are truly wonky.

Wiki shows unit cost for every US plane I've ever looked at. Some (maybe most) of the prices look like they've been adjusted for inflation, though, depending on the source, so factor that in. You might need to convert, say, 1978 dollars back to 1949 dollars.

Also, as emckinney says, buying planes isn't like shopping on Amazon.

Yea, I've seen unit costs listed I Wiki too.

Try Googling Jet Aircraft Costs, and various models, or use the word "comparison" in your searches. That should turn stuff up.

As mentioned, it may be hard to get true costs though, in some cases, since they are frequently bundled with spare parts, engines, and other things.

Hopefully, those that listed the prices took those into account.

They are also often tied in as part of a much wider deal or agreement. Selling new or secondhand aircraft cheaply to an ally or potential ally effectively increases the potential size of your own air assets – if you know your ally can handle a border, you can withdraw some of your own aircraft to defend or attack somewhere else, for instance. If the deal involves building parts in your own country, again the 'cost' may be hidden by subsidies or a decrease in social benefits paid out. Costs are not as simple as headline figures.