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Focus - First Test Flight of Super Hornet with 4x AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship Missiles
Navy Recognition ^ | 09 November 2013

Posted on 11/10/2013 6:41:14 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki

On runway 24 of U.S. Naval Air Station, Patuxent River, Maryland, a part of Boeing Harpoon missile history was recently witnessed when four of the proven Harpoon Block IC cruise missiles were uploaded onto a Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet to undergo a rigorous flight test over the Atlantic Ocean. The test verified flight characteristics with the quad load-out; a Harpoon first.

The test was performed jointly by members of the U.S. Navy’s VX-23 Strike Test squadron, PMA-201 Precision Strike Weapons team, Boeing Test & Evaluation and Weapons & Missile Systems businesses.

“There’s probably nothing that has to be more perfect than weapons integration and performance,” said James Dodd, vice president of Boeing Global Strike Weapons & Missile Systems. “It puts everyone at a high sense of perfection as to how they do their job on the Boeing side and the customer side.”

The Harpoon Block IC missile is an autonomous, all weather anti-ship and land strike weapon that can be launched from aircraft, ships, submarines or by mobile coastal defense vehicles. It’s used by more than 30 international allies.

U.S. Navy CDR. Kevin Quarderer, NAVAIR’s Precision Strike Weapons program office deputy program manager for the Harpoon and SLAM ER programs, said the Boeing and U.S. Navy teams work incredibly close to achieve the levels of perfection dictated by working around ordnance and weapons.

“It’s absolutely serious business,” said CDR. Quarderer. “The only answer that’s acceptable is that every single weapon has got to find its target.”

The flight test with the four Boeing built Harpoon Block IC missiles underneath the wings of the F/A-18 Super Hornet was a success. More integration work proving the capabilities of the missile configuration and fighter attack jet is continuing.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aerospace; harpoon; superhornet; usn
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To: Yo-Yo

“... With the 1990s retirement of the Intruder, the over 15 year wait to integrate four Harpoons onto the SuperHornet can be called a lot worse than “proceeding prudently.”
...
I’m just still surprised it took this long to perform.”

Many more paragraphs would be needed, to present even the shortest, roughest summary of acquisition history/politics since the early 1990s. And that’s before addressing any external (actual) threat.

Best guess: USN system managers went through much backing/filling, second-guessing, and poker-facing to get F-18 to where it it is today. Never anybody’s first choice for strike, it’s still marginal; no other choices left right now.

Specific system test requirements crop up unpredictably, and can get delayed for reasons that seem trivial or less. Now and then, something that seems blindingly obvious gets ignored longer than excusable - in retrospect.


21 posted on 11/23/2013 8:36:35 AM PST by schurmann
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To: Yo-Yo
With the 1990s retirement of the Intruder, the over 15 year wait to integrate four Harpoons onto the SuperHornet can be called a lot worse than “proceeding prudently.”

Most likely driven by the focus away from the Middle East and towards the Pacific, it's more of an “oh crap, we never got around to it” moment for the strategizers.


I think you've got it. The focus has been on integrating all of the different asymmetric loadouts that have become typical of the War on Terror - Mavericks (of different types - IR vs Laser), various types of LGBs, various types of JDAMS and unguided rockets usually mounted in some combination to provide lots of different options for a mission involving loiter and responding to calls for support on the ground.


22 posted on 11/23/2013 8:50:30 AM PST by tanknetter
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To: schurmann

One more quick thing to add - look closely at those missles. They have blue bands, meaning they’re inert.

This was most likely a flight to test the aerodynamic configuration, rather than integration with the Superbug’s weapons systems. The Superbug has had lots of aerodynamic issues with carrying various stores. If you notice the picture shot from underneath, you’ll see that the pylons are “toed-out” by a few degrees. This was a change made during development (or even the early production run) because under certain loadouts and flight conditions lift would slide off the Superbugs’ wings. The additional drag penalty was considered acceptable to prevent that from happening ...


23 posted on 11/23/2013 8:55:33 AM PST by tanknetter
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