In the decade-and-a-half since Australia received its first Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet, the Royal Australian Air Force’s (RAAF’s) thinking on the carrier-capable strike fighter has evolved significantly.
Speaking at the 2025 Avalon air show near Melbourne on 27 March, senior RAAF leaders noted the first Super Hornet arrived in Australia 15 years ago, on 26 March 2010.
The service’s operational air commander, Air Vice-Marshal Glen Braz, describes the twin-engined strike fighter as a “stalwart” of Australia’s air combat capability.
“The Super Hornet was just a really impressive change for us at the time, and a very timely stepping stone to take our force forward in all sorts of interesting ways,” Braz says.
Canberra notes the RAAF’s two-seat F/A-18Fs were the country’s first new combat aircraft in some 25 years, when the first example was introduced in 2010. Braz says Super Hornets were critical in transitioning the air force away from the Cold War-era General Dynamics F-111 to the modern Lockheed Martin F-35A stealth platform.
“It’s done an amazing job,” says Braz. “The Super Hornet has been great in service and continues to evolve and develop and remain extremely relevant.”
While Canberra had at one point planned to phase out its F/A-18F fleet after receiving the RAAF’s full complement of F-35s – a milestone achieved last December – the Super Hornets now appear here to stay.
Boeing in January secured an A$600 million ($378 million) contract to upgrade the RAAF’s fleet of 24 F/A-18Fs to the latest Block III standard used by the US Navy (USN). That deal will also cover Australia’s 12 EA-18G Growler electronic attack jets, a type based on the F/A-18 airframe.
“The Super Hornet and Growler ecosystem gives us other capability sets that are really valuable to the air combat system,” says Braz. “It’s been a very positive pathway for Australia.”
While many F-35 operators in Europe plan to sunset their fleets of aged fourth-generation aircraft, Australia’s relatively young fleet of Super Hornets will allow it team fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft – an option available to only a handful of countries.
Braz says the “generational interactions” between the F/A-18 family and F-35 are already well-established by the USN.
“Our commonality with that fleet has let us really get on the front foot in terms of that integration,” he notes. “We do things slightly differently, but we learn from each other and we get best of breed, I think, from across the system.”
