How much does an aircraft carrier cost?
The above answer is correct for the past generation. The modern aircraft carrier are much more expensive: http://www.thememoryhole.org/crs/more-reports/RS20643.pdf mentions a cost of 8.78 billions for aquisition of the new generation of CVNX type (navy estimate) Another site mentions 11 billions: Construction on the CVNX-2, a more advanced ship with a new hull design and $11 billion price tag, would start in 2009, not 2007 as planned for CVNX-1. The Navy’s plan would cancel the CVNX-1, but start CVNX-2 in the same time slot — 2007. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/cvx-history.htm CVNX-1 will feature a new design nuclear propulsion plant leveraging three generations of submarine reactor technology. The requirement for a new nuclear propulsion system reflects a need for a reduction in manning, maintenance, acquisition
You have to consider a couple of things: 1) Costs change with time (materials, labor, technology). 2) Inflation devaluates the dollar (especially now ;-). 3) The quoted new carrier (already known to be named after Gerald Ford) is a new class, so its price cannot be equaled with Nimitz class carriers. And now to numbers: $160m yearly operating cost is for FY96. Nowadays more likely to be as much as $220-250m. $4.5bn build cost is for FY01 (CVN-77). I’ve seen a report for Congress prepared in 2005 that estimated development costs of the new carrier (CVN-78) to $3.2bn and build cost to $10.5bn. And purely for your entertainment: The wikipedia page on the F-16 fighter quotes a unit price (for C/D model) of $19m FY98. From good sources I can tell you that nowadays this plane (a newer model) costs around $35m for USAF and $45m for export. How’s that price stability 😉 [Of course, a fighter jet is a totally different kind of animal, so you can’t directly map those price rises onto carriers.
