For those of us who love the Frogfoot

[Vedexent]

In the "Hey, I just won the Billion dollar US Powerball" category.

 

http://www.generalequipment.info/SUKHOI%20SU-25.htm

 

Choose between the UB (for those of us who are married and need to take the wife along), or the single seater K model for you bachelors/bachelorettes.

 

No price listed, but I'm guessing that restoring/rebuilding/certifying would be in the $12M to $15M range?

 

And what for operating costs? $3-6K per hour?

[Aginor]

That hourly operating cost would be pretty low.

IIRC the cost for an hour of A-10 flying is around $12k, I would expect the Frogfoot to be in that region, probably a bit lower, like $6-8k per hour at least.

[AG-51_Razor]

That hourly operating cost would be pretty low.

IIRC the cost for an hour of A-10 flying is around $12k, I would expect the Frogfoot to be in that region, probably a bit lower, like $6-8k per hour at least.

 

Those numbers (cost of operation) are meaningless once you - a private citizen - take possession and begin flying it. Those numbers are arrived at by averaging the cost of the whole fleet. Without a hanger full of spares and a full time mechanic, preferrably fluent in Russian, and another hanger full of ground support equipment, you'd probably get one or two flights in before you'd be out of business.

 

It's nice to dream though. Maybe The Donald would be interested?? :joystick:

[Vedexent]

There's a couple of operations in the US which seem to be pretty proficient at rebuilding and maintaining warbirds - even Russian ones.

 

So far as I know, however, none of them seem to have tried a SU-25 - mostly 1950's MiGs, or L-39s

[AG-51_Razor]

You are absolutely correct about that, but rest assured that they all employ several mechanics and have warehouses full of parts for them. Also, these warbirds fly relatively few hours per year, probably well below a hundred, which drives the DOC well into the tens of thousands of dollars per hour.

[Bucic]

Check out the private US-based cold war museum.