Instead of deploying their own aircraft to participate in shows like Asian Aerospace and Farnborough, US aircraft companies inevitably temporarily “hire” Department of Defense aircraft (and often their crews) that are already based more locally.
Thus at Changi, Boeing’s two F/A-18 Super Hornet “‘exhibits” have been drawn from Air Wing Five, the wing assigned to the USS Kitty Hawk, the USA’s only permanently forward deployed aircraft carrier, home-ported at Yokosuka, Japan.
The aircraft here are drawn from the Kitty Hawk’s two Super Hornet squadrons, with a two-seat F/A-18F from the ‘Diamondbacks’ of Strike Fighter Squadron One Zero Two (VFA-102) and a single-seat F/A-18E from Strike Fighter Squadron 27 (VFA-27) “Royal Maces”. With the retirement of the A-6 Intruder and F-14 Tomcat, the Super Hornet provides US Navy carriers with their most potent and most versatile asset. “Super Hornets are the fangs and claws of the Battle Cat,” a proud Kitty Hawk crewmember told Flight Daily News.
Source: Flight Daily News
