A total of 170 F-8s were lost in the Vietnam War, about half from ground fire and half from accidents. Ref: Hobson, Chris. Vietnam Air Losses, USAF, USN, USMC, Fixed-Wing Aircraft Losses In Southeast Asia 1961–1973, pp. 269–271. Specialty Press, 2001. ISBN1-85780-115-6, Crusader In Action
globalsecurity.org
The US Air National Guard reports via http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-16-life.htm that it needs 247 hours per year for minimum necessary proficiency of its F-16C pilots, with an average sortie duration of 1.2 hours. Sprey p. 64 reports 30 sorties per month or nearly 400 hours per year for high combat proficiency. Manes reports 231 to 321 flight hours per year of logged flight time for various USAF and Air National Guard units.
"In every war, it's the few superb pilots that win the air battle. A tiny handful of such pilots have dominated every air-to-air battleground since World War I: roughly 10 percent of all pilots (the “hawks”) score 60 percent to 80 percent of the dogfight kills; the other 90 percent of pilots (“doves”) are the fodder for the hawks of the opposing side. Technical performance differences between opposing fighter planes pale in comparison." Pierre Sprey, "Evaluating Weapons: Sorting the Good from the Bad", The Pentagon Labyrinth: 10 Short Essays to Help You Through It, 2011, Center for Defense, http://pogoarchives.org/labyrinth/09-sprey-w-covers.pdf
This Jane's reference is only considering per hour cost of fuel, airfield level maintenance, and personnel. It is not considering original development costs, per unit purchase costs, and major upgrade programs. When all costs are considered and amortized, the total per flight hour costs will approximately triple. For example, total F-16C cost is reported $22,500 per hour by the USAF as of 2013, instead of the $7000 per hour reported by Jane's in their study. See http://nation.time.com/2013/04/02/costly-flight-hours/ for fully loaded hourly operating cost of USAF aircraft as reported by the USAF.
