The carrier-launched F/A-18 Super Hornet Block III has already exceeded expectations. It has flown years beyond its intended useful life and may continue to fly and fight in the future.
F/A-18 Block III Super Hornet, Explained
In recent years, the famed fighter has received new cockpit displays, infrared targeting technology, shaped fuel tanks, weapon upgrades, external gun pods, and special glide-slope carrier landing software called “magic carpet.” This is not an exhaustive list.
The F/A-18 airframes have stayed functional for thousands of flight hours over the originally projected 6,000 mission hours, as is typical of successful platforms like the B-52 and F-16. The platform’s flight time can be extended to 10,000 combat hours with proper upgrades, maintenance, and life extension strategies.
This extends the Hornet’s useful life in the air by decades, well beyond what was originally anticipated.
Added-shaped fuel tanks make the fuselage slightly more rounded and less detectable by enemy radars. Also, they greatly increase the aircraft’s dwell duration, allowing it to stay over enemy territory for longer and attack more targets in a single mission.
This might be crucial in the Pacific, where the region’s vastness makes it impossible to project and sustain air power from the water.
In recent years, a state-of-the-art infrared search and track system has been incorporated into the F/A-18 to improve target range and resolution, while sensor networks have been strengthened to continue to function in a combat environment marked by electronic warfare.
The F/A-18 Super Hornet is still in service because it serves multiple important purposes, including maintaining pure bulk in air combat formations and projecting strength until the carrier-launched F-35C arrives. For example, the US Navy recently conducted training operations with two aircraft carriers in the Pacific.
The exercises aimed to demonstrate the ability to network and sea-launch large numbers of aircraft to blanket an enemy area with air strikes, multiply attack options, and expand formations to overwhelm the enemy with air power. The advanced networking technologies and maintenance efforts of the F/A-18 have made this possible.
Although the stealthy F-35C is already operational and is still coming, there are still not enough of them in operation to carry out a massive strike with a large carrier air wing over a wide expanse.
The F/A-18 can help with this: The more secretive 5th generation planes can wipe out enemy air defenses, clearing a path for the less stealthy 4th generation planes like the Hornet to attack.
The United States would need to use a large number of carrier-launched aircraft in any Pacific engagement with a formidable adversary like China so that it could cover large areas of attack, Chinese counter attempts to encircle Taiwan from the air and keep up a steady aerial bombardment to overpower and destroy the enemy.
That is why the US Navy is undoubtedly grateful that, in recent years, it has requested more F/A-18s while modernizing and improving the existing fleet.
Unless the US Navy plans to use much larger numbers of F-35C carrier-launched stealth aircraft in the future, the F/A-18 Super Hornet isn’t going away anytime soon.
At the same time, several reports suggest that Boeing may soon stop production of its F/A-18. Therefore, even the Super Hornet could eventually disappear. So even the Super Hornet could die out in time, especially as fifth and sixth-generation carrier-launched airframes continue to arrive.
