However Cheney decided to destroy the tooling and molds for the Tomcat, and effectively put the 'cat to sleep. As the current planes age there will be no replacements, and it is sayonara for them.
Pentagon politics: Bureacracy and companies first, America last.
The probable reason for that faux pas was probably to ensure the JSF and the F-18E/F SuperHornet were not relegated in favor of a souped up Tomcat. Think of it, it would be evry hard to push for the superhornet if a superTomCat with modern avionucs and new tech rolled out. If the current Tomcats (that originally rolled out in 1973) are better than the current crop of SuperHornets, imagine the competition a 2002 TomCat would have given to the SuperHornet, and possibly even the JSF.
The JSF is a multi-national project to replace the Hornet, Falcon, and Harrier. It is not threatened by a Bombcat. The JSF has too short a range.
Such a thing could not happen, and thus the tooling was destroyed and the Tomcat program effectively killed. All in favor of the F/A-18! A plane that Israeli F-16s (in mock matchups) beat 220 times out of 240 (yes, you read me correctly! In an Israeli F-16/American F-18 match up the Israeli jets won the American hornets 220 times out of 240).
And yes, i know the Israeli pilots are trained like crazy since they do not have the numerical advantages the USAF has, but 220 out of 240! Do the kill ratio on that one!
The real test would be American vs American. Israeli pilots are driven by the knowledge that the loss of an engagment can doom the country.
Yes, i agree the reason the Israelis possibly won was due to the fact they knw that in any future engagements they would probably find themselves faving a horde of armies from a myriad of Arab nations attacking from different dirrections (a recoup of the 6 day war), and since Israel is virtually surrounded by them, and it is small, the pilots would have to be almost super-men.
However a kill ratio of 220 out of 240 (220 for the Israelis, and only 20 for the US navy F-18s) is still very shocking. Very. And i know the Israelis have done stuff to their F-16s to make them more maneuverable (possible even Thrust vectoring), but still...220 out of 240.
It just made me doubt seriously the efficacy of the Hornet against a comparable fighter flown by a competent pilot! We cannot assume that every nation we fight against will have an airforce composed of mig-19s and mig-21s piloted by Idiots!
220 out of 240!!!!!!!! There are no excuses for that one. None!
Note: they were flown by pilots who did not have much experience with the flanker, against pilots who were literally bron strapped to the cockpit of an F-15.... yet the Flanker won!
I could somewhat swallow the Israeli case (even though 220 israeli wins: 20 American wins is still quite shocking), but what is the excuse for the Sukhoi f-15 matchup?
And that was the F-15, a superb fighter. How is the F/A-18 supposed to cope with that?