Posted on 07/24/2002 3:18:23 PM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
ABOARD THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN ... The Navy's newest combat jet is .... a tanker?Not exactly.
The F/A-18E Super Hornet is an afterburner-charged strike fighter that can dogfight, drop bombs, launch missiles and serve as a mid-air gas station.
It is destined to become the Navy's top-of-the-line warplane.
"We're our own little war machine," said Lt. Stan Wilson, a Super Hornet pilot. "We can do everything."
The $57 million-per-copy Super Hornet, 11 years in development, is deploying for the first time Wednesday as the Lincoln battle group leaves San Diego bound for the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf.
Strike Fighter Squadron VFA-115, based at Lemoore Naval Air Station near Fresno, has been training with the Super Hornets for more than a year.
During the next six months aboard the Lincoln, the unit's 12 jets will be under a microscope during their baptism of fire, probably flying patrols over two powder kegs -- Afghanistan and Iraq.
The warplane is a larger, modernized version of the Navy and Marine Corps workhorse, the Hornet strike fighter. In coming years, it will replace the venerable F-14 Tomcat fighter, the 10- to 19-year-old and less-capable Hornet models, the 1970s-era S-3 Viking tankers and, potentially, the aged Prowler radar jammers.
Four feet longer with larger wings and more fuel capacity, the Super Hornet sports the latest in avionics -- touchscreen cockpit displays, all electronic dials and better computers -- and a refrigerator's worth of extra space to accommodate yet-to-be designed sensors and computers.
It comes in two models. The E version is a single-seater that replaces older Hornets. The F model is a two-seater used primarily as a replacement for the two-seat Tomcat.
The Super Hornet can carry nearly every missile and bomb in the Navy's arsenal, including the satellite-guided Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, a favored weapon in Afghanistan.
The Navy has a contract for 222 F/A-18s, and 100 have been delivered. The service might buy up to 326 more Super Hornets. Chicago-based Boeing produces the plane under a $8.9 billion contract.
However, the Navy is going it alone on the Super Hornet. The Marine Corps, the only other U.S. service that flies Hornets, balked at the price.
The men and women who maintain the Super Hornet praise it, and pilots say the plane is easy to fly because of its advanced computers, newer engines and digital cockpit displays.
Each Super Hornet can carry three JDAMs -- the older Hornets carry just one -- and can bring them back to the carrier if not dropped.
Also, with 33 percent more fuel, the E models can fly 132 miles farther than older Hornets.
"Gas is the Achilles' heel of any strike mission," said Capt. Scott Swift, deputy commander of the Lincoln's air wing.
More fuel capacity also allows the Super Hornets to linger over targets longer, he added.
Keeping the Super Hornet flying is easier, too. Built-in diagnostics monitor engines, radars, electronics, hydraulics, stresses on the wings and fuselage and other information. After each flight, a mechanic can download and analyze the data on a laptop.
"It's the easiest aircraft in the Navy to maintain," said Master Chief Petty Officer Ferrell Briggs.
Lt. Joel Tessier, the squadron's assistant maintenance officer, said: "It's a new car that's performing like a new car should."
The plane's versatility was demonstrated off San Diego during the Lincoln's final training exercise May 7. An important practice mission was jeopardized when an Air Force refueling tanker was grounded.
Without mid-air refueling, the carrier's fighters and bombers would never make it to the target and back.
An admiral asked: Could VFA-115's Super Hornets handle the job? Cmdr. Eric Devita, then the squadron's skipper, said his unit would try.
One aircraft, configured in fighter mode, was just returning from a flight. Missiles and bombs would have to be removed and fuel tanks installed -- a process estimated to take five hours. The refueling mission was two hours away.
As the Super Hornet taxied to a stop at the edge of the carrier's rolling deck and shut down its two engines, a phalanx of sailors advanced, ducking under the wings.
In the darkness, pierced only by flashlights and the glow from the afterburners of nearby jets, mechanics traded bombs for 500-gallon fuel tanks. Five "buddy" tanks were slung underneath the wings and fuselage.
In 80 minutes, the fighter was transformed into an aerial refueling tanker. "We took a strike fighter and made it into a tanker," Devita said. "It's not a glorious role, but it's an important role."
The Super Hornet's flight to deployment hit some turbulence during the 1990s. Some critics questioned the Navy's ability to meet performance specifications, a chronic problem with older Hornet models that were heavier than expected and could not fly as far as projected. Others worried that the plane would not be fully tested before it was approved for production.
In 1996, testing of the Super Hornet revealed a phenomena called "wing drop," during which one wing would dip unexpectedly in some turns, causing the plane to roll sharply and uncontrollably.
"It would have been a show stopper" if not corrected, said Chuck Spinney, a Pentagon analyst.
The Navy spent millions of dollars and months to fix the wing drop, tweaking the wings to reduce the problem.
"Fortunately, (the Navy and Boeing) devoted considerable effort to understand and correct it," said Philip Coyle, head of the Pentagon's testing agency until last year.
Whether it's flying a tanker mission or a bombing run, the Navy seems happy with the Super Hornet.
It's the right plane at the right time, said Vice Adm. John Nathman, who oversees training, maintenance and personnel for Navy air units.
"We bought a strike fighter, and we bought a very good strike fighter," he said.
Except match the performance of the plane it will be replacing, the F-14.
I thought the Hornet's primary role was to replace the A-6 Intruder.
The Hornet will have a tough go of it as an air superiority fighter. Just MHO.
11 years do develop and deploy, what is in reality a modification, albeit a major one, of an existing aircaft. That is truely sick. They didn't even develope new avionics, but used those designed and/or upgraded for the older models. (For the most part that is). Only now are they talking about putting in an electronically scanned arrary radar for example. The existing E and F's have eseentially the same radar as the C and D models. Meanwhile they, the Navy airplane design and developement community, bit the big one twice, once with the A-6 upgrade that never was and the with the A-12, which never progressed beyong the mockup stage, inspite of both of these programs sucking up mucho dinero.
The Intruder was supposed to be replaced by the A-12. The D model Hornet has been a band aid that has failed in that role. The Hornet was designed to replace the A-4, A-7 and F-4.
That doesn't sound right.
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