Free Republic

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD — Boeing is working to help the Navy resolve the strike fighter shortfall through three programs for its F/A-18 Super Hornets and is offering a substantial increase in the fighter’s capability with a Block III upgrade, a company official said April 4. In a significant shift in tone, the officials who briefed reporters at the Navy League’s 2017 Sea-Air-Space Exposition talked about the Super Hornet providing “complementary capabilities” to the Lockheed Martin F-35s. Recently, Boeing officials have been describing the Super Hornets as a cheaper alternative to the fifth-generation Lightning II. The initial effort to close the...

Since its inception nearly 40 years ago, the F/A-18 fighter family has come to dominate Navy carrier decks — and supported a base of more than 200 military contractors in Southern California. With a stealthy replacement rolling off assembly lines, though, its days seemed to be numbered. Now, thanks to an unexpected lift from the Trump administration, the latest version of the fighter jet could catch a second wind. President Trump has requested $2.32 billion for 24 new F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet aircraft in a supplemental budget request for fiscal year 2017. That comes after months of Trump tweets and...

The F/A-18XT is the designation for the Advanced Super Hornet, which is the Block III fighter jet concept for the Navy. (Photo courtesy Boeing) President Donald Trump on Friday announced he’s considering a “big order” of advanced Super Hornet fighter jets designated F/A-18XT and made by Boeing Co. “We are looking seriously at a big order,” he told the audience at Boeing’s South Carolina facility during the unveiling of the company’s 787 Dreamliner. “Do you care if we use the F-18 Super Hornets?” The comments came less than a month after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis ordered a review of the...

Common sense is running strong in Ottawa as the Canadian Ministry of Defense has decided to move forward with negotiations for 18 Boeing Super Hornets as an interim fighter solution. We reported on this plan last June while it was still in the works. Now Defense Minister Sajjan has made it policy, along with other steps that will be taken to revitalize Canada’s overstretched tactical air power capabilities. The purchase will bolster Canada’s aging Hornet fleet while the competition to replace Canada’s roughly 75 CF-18s gets underway. It is estimated that the competition, which Sajjan said will be “wide open,”...

Boeing scored a $12 million dollar contract to transition the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron to newer jets. The Blue Angels, who have been flying the F/A-18 Hornet since 1986, are moving up to the bigger F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The Blue Angels currently fly a mixed bag of older Hornet fighters. They've got three of the oldest F/A-18A model, 10 of the newer -C models, and three two-seater models. The -A and -C models are all 20 to 30 years old. The Angels typically fly Hornets that are very much still functional, but too old to keep operating...

The U.S. could see the cost of new Boeing Co (BA.N) F/A-18E/F Super Hornets rise unless the government approves foreign sales of the jets soon, U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said on Sunday. Mabus, in Germany for a NATO exercise in the Baltic Sea, told Reuters he was frustrated by delays in approving the sale of the Boeing jets to a close U.S. ally, warning that this could affect the cost of jets the U.S. Navy still wants to buy. U.S. Navy and other defense officials have said they support the sale of 28 Boeing F/A-18E/F jets to Kuwait for...

OTTAWA — The Liberal government is intent on buying Super Hornet fighter jets, according to multiple sources. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet reportedly discussed the issue last week, and while no formal decision was taken, one top-level official said: “They have made up their minds and are working on the right narrative to support it.” Rather than a full replacement of the air force’s aging CF-18 fighter fleet, it’s believed the purchase will be labelled an interim measure to fill what Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has warned is a pending “gap” in Canada’s military capabilities. The Liberals promised during the...

A Navy captain from Virginia Beach was testifying before Congress on Thursday about the shortage of flyable fighter jets at Oceana Naval Air Station. As he spoke, word came to military officials seated behind him: A pair of F/A-18F Super Hornets from Oceana had “a mid-air mishap” off the coast of North Carolina, forcing four aviators to eject and sending their $57 million aircraft hurtling into the Atlantic Ocean. Capt. Randy Stearns, commodore of Strike Fighter Wing Atlantic, was briefed on the training accident involving two of his jets during a short recess from the hearing, then returned to the...

India is keen to consider Boeing's offer to supply F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets to the Indian Air Force (IAF). Sources said that New Delhi will take a hard look at the proposal in April when a high-level delegation will engage the Indian officials on the construct of the offer. US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter will be in India on April 10 in a visit that is expected to take lift cooperation to a new level. Boeing has offered F/A-18 Super Hornets under the "Make in India" framework of the Indian government. Sources said the proposal is worth considering as...

The Navy will soon deploy a new air-launched, precision-guided weapon able to use a two-way data-link to identify and destroy moving targets at sea, a technology, giving fighters such as the F/A-18 Super Hornet a vastly increased attack envelope against a wider range of threats. Called the AMG-154 Joint Standoff Weapon, or JSOW, the Raytheon-built attack bomb uses GPS technology, inertial measurement unit guidance technology and an imaging infrared seeker in the final phase of flight to find and attack enemy targets. While historically used as a land-attack weapon launched from air-platforms such as fighter jets, new technology allows the...

NEW DELHI: US aircraft maker Boeing Co is in a "conversation" on manufacturing its F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet in India, Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg was quoted on Wednesday as saying on his first visit to the country. "We see the Super Hornet as an opportunity ... to tie directly into the 'Make in India' strategy," Mr Muilenburg told the Hindustan Times in an interview whose authenticity was confirmed by the company. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Make in India' drive is designed to expand India's industrial base. Boeing was willing to back the project with billions of dollars in...

Man, Boeing (NYSE:BA) just cannot catch a break. For a while there, 2015 was starting to look like the year Boeing defense got its wings back. In February, opining that "stealth may be overrated," U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert began laying the groundwork for the U.S. Navy breaking up with Lockheed Martin's F-35C fighter jet, and buying a bunch of Boeing F/A-18s for its carriers instead. Earlier this month, the Air Force floated a trial balloon of its own. In a controversial revelation, the Air Force suggested it was considering buying as many as six dozen cheaper...

The US Navy has begun integrating Lockheed Martin’s new Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) with its Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and airworthiness flights are due to start next month. The service says its test and evaluation team at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland conducted the first load and fit checks with the weapon this week using a “mass simulator vehicle” – all in preparation for first phase of airworthiness certification. LRASM has already been integrated with the US Air Force’s Boeing B-1B bomber, and now pictures released by the navy show the weight-representative payload attached to a Super Hornet’s...

Kuwait is expected to announce in coming weeks an order for 28 Boeing Co (BA.N) F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, a $3 billion-plus (£1.96 billion plus) deal that will keep the jets' St. Louis production line running well into 2019, according to people familiar with the deal. Kuwait, which operates a fleet of earlier F/A-18 models, has signed a formal letter stating its firm plans to buy newer-model Boeing jets, according to one of the people who is familiar with the deal but was not authorized to speak publicly. A second source confirmed that the U.S. government was working with Kuwait to...

Did You Know that American advanced F-14 Tom Cat Fighter Jets, helped to keep Ayatollah Khomeini in Power during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s? When Iran was under the pro-American Shah of Iran, America sold 79 F-14 Tom Cats to Iran in 1974-1978. The world's most experienced combat pilots in the F-14 are Iranians. According to Wikipedia: "...In 1980, an Iranian F-14 shot down an Iraqi Mil Mi-25 helicopter for its first air-to-air kill during the Iran–Iraq War. According to research by Tom Cooper, within the first six months of the war Iranian F-14s scored over 50 air-to-air victories,...

Several years since it was eventually retired from the U.S. Navy, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat remains one of the most loved planes by aviation enthusiasts. Any article about this iconic fighter plane, still operating with the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, its story, capabilities, records and surrounding anecdotes, always become a much debated and commented post on The Aviationist. For this reason, we will continue writing about this legendary plane and its replacement: the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. After the Tomcat retirement, the Rhino (as the F/A-18E/F is nicknamed by its aircrews) has not only quickly become the backbone of...

The U.S. Navy received Milestone C acquisition approval earlier this month to begin low-rate initial production (LRIP) of an infrared search and track (IRST) sensor pod for the F/A-18 Super Hornet. Manufacturer Lockheed Martin and partner Boeing will deliver six pods in the first LRIP lot. The AN/ASG-34 IRST sensor gives the F/A-18E/F a long-range, passive search and tracking capability against multiple targets, supplementing the jet’s APG-79 active electronically scanned radar and other sensors. The pod is mounted on the nose section of the Super Hornet’s centerline fuel tank. It completed a first flight aboard an F/A-18F in February. “Integrating...

The Hornet Ball (Strike Fighter Ball Pacific) is an annual event consisting of all the West coast Naval F/A-18C Legacy Hornet and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet squadrons, their pilots and guests. Each year the event features a video, produced by “Wingnut”, a Hornet pilot himself, compiled from all the squadrons’ last year of flying in both combat and training missions: catapult launches, trap landings, aerobatics, dogfighting against Su-30s and Mig-29s, live firing of air-to-air missiles, HARM anti-radion missiles, LGBs (Laser Guided Bombs), cluster bombs, low level flying in the desert, ATFLIR (Advanced Targeting Forward Looking Infrared) pod clips, and much more.

Spectacular footage of F/A-18 Hornets and Super Hornets as they takeoff and land aboard an aircraft carrier. Impressive footage of the aircraft as they fly at low levels above the water, conduct banking and rolling maneuvers at high speed, and make high speed passes over the carrier in tandem formation and Bombing in Syria. Filmed from the cockpit and pilot point-of-view. Film Credits: Lt. Ian Schmidt, Lt. J.G. Michael Hatfield, Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jared King

Great pic, but begs some questions. Doesn't this look a bit too close for comfort, or is it not as close as it appears? Who would be flying that close to a refueling op, and why? The cockpit frame visible in the lower righthand corner suggests that it's not the other Aussie 18E/F that has flown thus far.