[XorNot]

No aircraft which can fulfill the CCA type role is going to be "disposable". All the systems in that performance bracket are in the 20-40 million range minimum.

The most persistent thing misunderstanding about drones is people imagining that a supersonic capable stealth airframe is going to be really cheap just because it doesn't have a pilot.

[smackeyacky]

Still, the F16 is 16 hours of maintenance per hour of flight or something close to that. Which probably isn’t terrible compared to other aircraft but doesn’t seem sensible for something without aircrew

[robocat]

To make it safe for the pilot plus anyone in the flight path.

Could the hours of maintenance be dropped significantly in wartime: if you don't care about catastrophic failure modes over a foreign country?

[smackeyacky]

I assume there are shortcuts like extending the service life of particular consumables and whatnot.

Even something like a Gripen, designed to be run from makeshift airfields needs 10 hours of maintenance per hour of flight. Maybe it’s just hard to build supersonic, combat capable airframes as was suggested above.