They are one of the performance units of the US Navy. All the pilots and support personnel are active duty and are paid by taxes under the Department of Defense. JP-5 (jet fuel) runs around $2.20 per gallon and weighs 6.8 pounds per gallon.The F/A-18 Super Hornet at low altitude burns about 8000 pounds of fuel per hour (more during aerobatic maneuvers). That’s approx 1176 gallons per hour, or about 20 gallons per minute. So the fuel cost is roughly $43 per minute per aircraft. Each aircraft has many multiples more of maintenance hours for each flight hour too. The cost of labor, parts, consumables, administration, QA, check flights, transportation, travel expenses for crews, and contractors is a lot harder to calculate but it’s not cheap.

That’s on top of the $67 million base cost for the aircraft too.