Unit Cost of Various Aircraft

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The M-25V was a licensed version of the Cyclone engine so no development costs. It was in an aircraft that cost around 50,000 rubles with engine and over 10,000 were produced. Of course these are Soviet figures so I expect that the true figure is likely not what was reported. I honestly have no clue to the correct data, but this is the best I can find
 
The M-25, M-62, and M-63 are all descendants of the Wright R-1820. Their prices cannot differ by an order of magnitude.
 
loreng59 said:
Understood - likely this is an error or a fabrication on the part of the Soviets. I do not know
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I think they just forgot to print the zero. IIRC, in 1933, the price of the M-25 amounted over 50,000 rubles, but over the years of production, the cost fell, so the number 32,000 seems very likely to be true.
These "price lists" have been reproduced many times on various forums, but I haven't seen anyone fixed the error so far.
 
Thank you. Do you have the link to the source?
TB-7 is surprisingly cheap. Probably, just an airframe.
 
Some of these unit prices seem too high and I suspect that (for NAA aircraft at least), someone has divided total contract price by the amount of aircraft to arrive at a figure. However total contract costs would include items such as spare parts, technical publications, flight testing and sundries such as drop tanks etc.

Therefore a better example would be Contract AF 6517 for 709 F-86Fs, which was initially agreed at a unit price of $107, 453.

The final negotiated price (now for 967 NA-191 aircraft and exploiting economies of scale) was $101, 030.40, of which the customer agreed an NAA unit profit of $10,855.90.
 
OMG I love this but I cannot convert 1941 Rubles to current USD.

Chat GPT says it's about 85:1 using official exchange rates or maybe (wide variation) 850:1 using something like purchasing power parity.

Damn the Soviets and their non-price based economy!
 
According to the Office of the Historian (US Government) the 1940 exchange rate was 5.3 rubles : 1 USD, while in 1941 it was fixed at this rate for purposes of trade for the duration of the war. This is similar to what was done with the British Pound and the USD, which was fixed at 1 £ : 4 USD for the duration of the war, beginning in 1940(?). You may find some rates mentioned as high as 25 rubles : 1 USD, but this was a special exchange rate for the US ambassadorial staff and other special envoys and liaison personnel in order to allow them to have a sustainable/livable war-time income while in Moscow and Russia proper. The reason for the great difference is similar to the reason why cost of living is significantly (1.5-2x) higher in New York City than in small towns or rural areas in the midwest US. Apparently, it was very expensive to live in Moscow when compared to the average cost of living elsewhere in the Soviet Union.
 
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The exchange rate of a non-convertible currency is a consequence of political decisions made by governments and reflects nothing more than that.
I think that in terms of labor costs, Soviet aircraft were much more expensive than Western ones due to the huge amount of customization work involved, whereas the cost of materials was most likely lower.
Interestingly, there was no "black" (illegal) currency market in the USSR from 1935 until the outbreak of the war. During the war, it appeared and even grew to impressive proportions, despite all efforts to suppress it.
For example: in the early 1980s, the official exchange rate was 0.6-0.7 rubles per dollar, while on the illegal market, a dollar was worth about 5 rubles.
 
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