British Aircraft costs
 

I have used the search engine and cannot seem to find anything on this subject. Can anyone point me to a source for British aircraft costs, particularly of interest are the Blenheim, Beaufort and Mosquito?

Many Thanks,

Artie Bob

Re: British Aircraft costs
 

The best source is most likely the Ministry of Aircraft Production "Price Books", held by the RAF Museum (there may also be a set at Kew as part of AVIA 2 but I have not checked).

The labo(u)r and subcontract cost of a Mossie was 6,000 pounds in 1941 and 4,200 pounds in 1945. Sebastian Ritchie, "A New Audit of War: The Productivity of Britain's Wartime Aircraft Industry Reconsidered", War & Society, v. 12 no. 1 (May 1994), pp. 125-147, p. 131.

Re: British Aircraft costs
 

Many Thanks,

ArtieBob

Re: British Aircraft costs
 

Finns bought 9 complete Blenheim Mk Is with price of £ 14 444 per a/c on 6 Oct 1936, but that did't incl the gun turret, part of the dials, radios and bomb shackles. Afterwards Finns calculated that the £ 14 444 was only under 2/3 of the total price of one Blenheim.

Juha

Re: British Aircraft costs
 

According to The Times (London) January 4th 1941 the "Edinburgh Fighter Aircraft Fund" had reached "£61,968" ... "and yesterday names were chosen for the 12 aeroplanes which this money will buy."

I also seem to recall that when a town purchased a Spitfire, they had to raise £5,000.

I have heard one figure for a finished Whitley bomber being in the region of £25,000. I should be most interested to know the figure?

Mark

Re: British Aircraft costs
 

The "prices" of presentation aircraft were set politically, and had little to do with the actual cost of the aircraft. I seem to recall reading some time ago that actual costs were at least twice the presentation price.

Re: British Aircraft costs
 

The sum of £5,000 for a Spitfire was the price which was set by the Spitfire Fund in 1940 which was based between the actual cost and what the public might be prepared to pay.

Actual total cost of a Spitfire Mk.I in 1940 was £9,848.19.0. The £5,000 figure was the figure used during fund-raising.

Hope that helps,

Tim

Re: British Aircraft costs
 

Three years and an extra Merlin later, beautiful downtown Porthcawl had this to say:

http://i937.photobucket.com/albums/a...uxt/5acd_1.jpg

Re: British Aircraft costs
 

Bill
Several replies suggest that the public were in a way, being mislead about the cost of an aircraft?
Mark

Re: British Aircraft costs
 

Well you could argue that Mark. As you can see in my post above the actual cost of a Spitfire Mk.I was nearly twice that of the "fund price".

But then fund and presentation aircraft were often "invented" for press visits, with random airframes being given hasty artwork from the ground crews to portray a particular fund or presentation aircraft.

Such is war and the issue of public morale.

Cheers,

Tim

Re: British Aircraft costs
 

As Smithy said, it was more about symbolism that about being misleading. A name painted on a Spitfire was in recognition of the town (or whoever) doing something extra. The collected money went into general government funds, its not as if the town gave a cheque to Supermarine, and then Supermarine gave the RAF a Spitfire.

It is always a little difficult to name a single price for a single aircraft, even today. Governments will buy some equipment from other manufacturers, different quantities of purchases will change unit prices of raw materials and purchased parts, etc. Quantities of aircraft purchased and the creation or enlargement of production facilities will change unit costs of complete aircraft as well. If you asked the accountants of that time for an actual cost of an aircraft about to be named, you would probably get very different answers every time you asked. That wouldn't help the fund raising effort.

Perhaps the only meaningful cost would be to add up the entire production cost, and then divide by the number of delivered aircraft. Obviously, that is an after-the-fact calculation.

Re: British Aircraft costs
 

Harry Holmes, Avro Lancaster, The Definitive Record, Shrewsbury: Airlife, 1997 p. 35 gives a price of 58,974 pounds for a lancaster

Lancaster 31,985
Wellington 14, 367
Manchester 36,812
Halifax 23,354
Mosquito 9,829
Blenheim 9,880
Hampden 10,572
Whitley 11,160
Stirling 23,491
Battle 9,722

Government furnished equipment
Lancaster 900
Wellington 815
Manchester 710
Halifax 935
Mosquito 395
Blenheim 605
Hampden 570
Whitley 640
Stirling 900
Battle 465

The above figures are all from John Fahey's Australian dissertation. Britain 1939-1945: The Economic cost of Strategic Bombing. I believe it can be down-loaded for free on the Web. He cites the MAP Price Books as the source of basic airframe costs and he believes that these understate the cost of the aircraft even beyond the cost of GFE, noting the Holmes figure on Lancaster cost.

Re: British Aircraft costs
 

Thanks for all the input, I understand the complexities of aircraft cost analysis, but this gives me a starting point. My primary interest is the Ju 88 and I am trying to compare the cost of then contemporaries. Just as an example of how complex the matter is, each lot of Ju 88s was purchased at a constantly decreasing price, based on the learning curve. This also varied by each manufacturer involved and also probably does not include the government supplied equipment. Hopefully, There is enough information to make some conclusions about relative costs. Thanks again,
Best Regards,

Artie Bob

Re: British Aircraft costs
 

Lutz Budrass, Flugzeugindustrie und Luftrüstung in Deutschland, 1918–1945 (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1998) uses Ju 88 production (especially pre-41/2) as its case study.