The Future: Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet
The shortcomings of the existing F/A-18 Hornet are well understood, and have long caused Naval aviators to wish for their resolution. Meanwhile, the 1993 retirement of the A-6E/KA-6D fleet and the failure to produce a replacement for it have meant that NAVAIR has been hard pressed to get any kind of new aircraft onto U.S. carrier decks. At one point the feeling seemed to be that since the Navy was unable to produce new aircraft, perhaps it might be able to field a highly modified one. Back in 1991, the Navy leadership decided to build an upgraded version of the Hornet, which would replace the F-14 and early versions of the F/A-18. This redesigned F/A-18 would (hopefully!) resolve the Hornet's fuel-fraction problem as well as other shortcomings and provide an interim aircraft until a more advanced and suitable long-term solution to the Navy's aircraft procurement need could be developed. Thus was born the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, the key to the Navy's current naval aviation upgrade plan.
As planned, the F/A-18E (single seat) and — F (two-seat trainer) are more than just — C/D models with minor improvements. They are in fact brand-new airframes, with less than 30 % commonality with the older Hornets. The airframe itself has been enlarged to accommodate the internal fuel load that was lacking in the earlier F/A-18's. With a fuel fraction of around.3 (as opposed to the.23 of the earlier Hornets), much of the range/endurance problems of the earlier birds should be resolved. The twin engines are new General Electric F414-GE-400's, which will each now deliver 22,000 lb/9,979 kg of thrust in afterburner. There is also a new wing, with enough room for an extra weapons pylon inboard of the wing fold line on each side, which should help resolve some of the complaints about the Hornet's weapons load. To ensure that the Super Hornet can land safely with a heavier fuel/weapons load than earlier F/A-18's, the airframe structure and landing gear have also been strengthened. Since most of the-E/F's weapons load is planned to be expensive PGMs, which must be brought back if not expended, this is essential.
The Super Hornet will also be the first USN aircraft to make use of radar and infrared signature-reduction technologies. Most of the work in this area can be seen in the modified engine inlets, which have been squared off to reduce their signature and coated with radar-absorbing material. This should greatly increase the survivability and penetration capabilities of the new bird.
Finally, the Super Hornet will be the first naval aircraft to carry a new generation of electronic-countermeasures gear including the ALE-50, a towed decoy system that is proving highly effective in tests against the newest threats in the arsenals of our potential enemies.
To back up the new airframe and engines, the avionics of the new Hornet will be among the best in the world. The radar will be the same APG- 73 fitted to the late-production models of the F/A-18C/D. An even newer radar, based on the same fixed-phased-array technology as the APG-77 on the USAF's F-22A Raptor, is under development as well. To replace the sometimes troublesome Nighthawk pod, Hughes has recently been selected to develop a third-generation FLIR/targeting system for the Super Hornet, which will give it the best targeting resolution of any strike aircraft in the world.
The cockpit, designed again by the incomparable Eugene Adam and his team, will have a mix of "glass" MFDs (in full color!), and an improved user interface for the pilot. One part of this will be a helmet-mounted sighting system for use with the new AIM-9X version of the Sidewinder AAM. Other weapons will include the current array of iron ordnance and PGMs, as well as the new GBU-29/30/31/32 JDAMS, AGM-154 JSOW, and AGM-84E SLAM-ER cruise missile.
There will also be provisions for the Super Hornet to carry larger external drop tanks as well as the same "buddy" refueling store used by the S-3/ES-3 to tank other aircraft.
All this capability comes at a cost, though. At a maximum gross weight of some 66,000 lb/29,937 kg, the Super Hornet will weigh more than any other aircraft on a flight deck, including the F-14 Tomcat.
When McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing Military Aircraft) was given the contract to develop the Super Hornet, they set out to have a high level of commonality with the existing F/A-18 fleet. Early on in the design process, though, it became apparent that only a small percentage of the parts and systems could be carried over to the new bird. Despite this lack of true commonality, the Super Hornet was the only new tactical aircraft in the Navy pipeline, and so the Navy went forward with its development.
Today, the aircraft is well into its test program, with low-rate production approved by Congress.[61] At around $58 million a copy (when full production is reached), the Super Hornet will hardly be a bargain (-C/-D-model Hornets cost about half that). On the other hand, when stacked next to the estimated $158-million-dollar-per-unit cost of the USAF's new F-22A Raptor stealth fighter, the Super Hornet looks like quite a deal! Considering the current budget problems within the Department of Defense, there is a real possibility that one program or the other might be canceled. Since the Super Hornet is already in production (the F-22A has just begun flight tests), it may have an edge in the funding battles ahead.
If the Super Hornet survives the budget wars, current plans have the Navy buying at least five hundred of them in the next decade. This means they will begin to replace early model F-14As when the first fleet squadron stands up and goes to sea in 2001. Meanwhile, there is advanced work on several Super Hornet derivatives, including a two-seat all-weather strike version (that would restore the lost capabilities of the A-6 Intruder) and an electronic combat version of the F/A-18F (the so-called "Electric Hornet") that would replace the EA-6B Prowler.
The Future: Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)
Airmen and other warfighters often get testy when they hear somebody trying to sell them a "joint" project. All too often, "joint" has meant, "Let's pretend to cooperate, so the damned bean-counters and politicians won't slash our pet projects again." One of the longest-running of these joint dreams has looked to find a common airframe that all the services could use to satisfy their tactical fighter and strike requirements. The newest incarnation of this dream is called the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). The lure of potential multi-billion-dollar savings from such a program is the basis for the JSF program, which is an attempt to reverse the historic trend of escalating unit cost for combat aircraft. Taxpayer "sticker shock" at the price of aircraft like the F-22 Raptor and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is threatening to unleash a political backlash against the entire military aerospace complex. Thus the JSF program is aiming for a flyaway cost in the $30-to-$40-million range, for the first time emphasizing affordability rather than maximum performance.
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Current Navy plans have some thirty F/A-18E/F Super Hornets being built in Fiscal Year 1999, which will provide enough of the new aircraft to constitute the first advanced training and fleet squadrons.