Boeing test pilot Ricardo Traven is flying his usual impressive routine here in the Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet. The price of this significantly upgraded warplane to the U.S. Navy has been significantly reduced in recent years, so Boeing is bullish about international prospects. Australia recently became the first export customer for the Super, and Boeing is eyeing India, Japan, Greece and Switzerland, among others.
The Australians signed up for 24 F/A-18E/Fs as a gap-filler, between their older F/A-18A/B Hornets and the Joint Strike Fighter. But the new Boeing jets, to be delivered from 2010, will also permit the retirement of Australia’s F-111s that are used for maritime and other strike missions. Boeing said that the Super Hornet can perform nine different missions–an “unprecedented’ degree of flexibility. Austrailian Air Force chief air marshall Angus Houston noted recently that the Super Hornet “is the only aircraft that has the most advanced AESA radar.”
In fact, Boeing says that the Raytheon APG-79 active electronically scanned array radar is the key to the Block II versions of the F/A-18E/F that are now being delivered to the U.S. Navy. The advantages of the active array are becoming ever more apparent, and in this case, are currently being explored by the first operational U.S. Navy squadron to receive Block II, namely VFA-213. In particular, Boeing is touting the ability of pilots in the two-seat F/A-18F to decouple their cockpits so that (for instance) one can concentrate on defending against an air-to-air threat, while the other prosecutes a ground attack, both using discrete functions of the radar simultaneously.
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