Just finished an interesting article in the latest Smithsonian Air and Space magazine. The Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornet will be getting an extensive retrofit giving it more range and even though it is a “4th Generation” fighter, some stealthy qualities even though that was not in the initial design.
But through avionics change, it will gain some of that invisibility.
Another interesting bit? At $10,500/hour, it costs less than a third to run as the new F-35.
I’m sure Hizzoner would have had a lot to say about it.
I guess you could say these are a 4th generation Hornet, following the original single seat Legacy version, to the dual seat FA-18E, to the Super Hornet (about 25% bigger) to this revised version.
…a Super Hornet coming off the Boeing assembly line in St. Louis today is not at all like the Super Hornet I last flew in 1998″.
Seems like an intelligent way of utilizing technological improvements to an original airframe without the huge expense of designing a new airframe.
Lex had an interesting history on the original Hornet. Not a bad ending for the “loser” of the original competition. The winner didn’t do to badly, either.
How the “loser” in the competition became the Navy’s frontline fighter.