Boeing and US Navy officials are pushing to secure foreign sales of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet by exploiting projected delays to the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
The first 12 Super Hornets available for export will be ready for delivery in 2007, which the navy/Boeing programme team says is now a full decade before a JSF with equivalent operational capability can be delivered after the programme's delays.
The JSF schedule has slipped two years to accommodate design changes caused by a weight problem affecting all three variants.
As well as the timing benefit, Super Hornet deals may also enjoy relaxed export restrictions. Offering foreign customers access to "high order" portions of the usually highly sensitive weapon-systems source code is being considered, as long as the US export control regime approves transfer of the technology, says Capt Greg Wallace, director of international Super Hornet programmes.
However, the new navy-Boeing sales campaign is complicated not only by a relatively weak global market for new fighters, but by widespread misconceptions about the cost and capabilities of the USN's key fighter.
Wallace says in recent fighter competitions the customer's initial cost estimate of the Super Hornet was "not even close" to its actual price. In 2007, the aircraft available for export will cost $53-55 million on average, with a difference of roughly $400,000 between the single-seat F/A-18E and two-seat F/A-18F models, says Wallace.
In 2007, there will be four F/A-18Fs and eight F/A-18Es ready for sale, featuring a Block 2 configuration with Raytheon APG-79 active electronically scanned array radar, tactical datalink, third-generation targeting pod, Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System and 11 weapons stations. "The only thing that would hold us up is putting the paperwork through," says Wallace.
The USN strategy includes an appeal to consider the Super Hornet as complementary to the JSF, not a competitor - a concept based on the navy's own acquisition model.
STEPHEN TRIMBLE / WASHINGTON DC
Source: Flight International
