ALAN DRON
A military aircraft's life really starts when it goes on active duty.
And Tuesday marked day one in the service history of the Boeing F/A-18E/F when aircraft of US Navy squadron VFA-115 landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln.
"The Super Hornet is now deployed for operations," said Pat Finneran, Boeing's vice-president and general manager of USN/USMC programmes at a Farnborough briefing session.
More than 100 F/A-18E/Fs have now been delivered out of an initial multi-year contract for 222 aircraft and discussions on a second such contract are under way, says Finneran. The US Navy requirement will be somewhere between 460 and 750 examples, plus another 90 to 100 machines if the Super Hornet takes on the electronic warfare role currently handled by the Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler.
The international market for the type could add 150-200 aircraft to those figures.
Competing
Boeing is competing for orders in Malaysia and Singapore, with the company waiting to hear Kuala Lumpur's decision. "Malaysia is an F/A-18D customer and we've worked very hard with them to make sure they are happy ‘D' customers."
If the contest goes Boeing's way, "We believe they will choose F/A-18Fs," says Finneran.
Pilots transitioning from the earlier F/A-18C to the ‘E' take around one month and 20-30 hours' flying to convert; US Navy pilots transitioning from the older F-14 Tomcat typically take around 100 hours.
Asked about progress on the EA-18G electronic warfare variant, Boeing test pilot Ricardo Traven says that preliminary flights have been undertaken carrying the electronic warfare pods fitted to the EA-6B Prowler to collect initial noise and vibration measurements. There have been "no big show-stoppers".
Source: Flight Daily News
