http://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-updated-f18-comparable-f35-advanced-super-hornet-2017-1

President-elect Donald Trump caused a genuine uproar in the combat-aviation community when he tweeted in December, "Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet!"

The idea that an F/A-18 Super Hornet could be "comparable" to the F-35 met swift and intense condemnation, and Lockheed Martin quickly lost billions in value on its stock.

"No, Mr. Trump, You Can't Replace F-35 With A 'Comparable' F-18" a headline at Breaking Defense said.

"You can't replace the F-35 with an F-18 any more than you can replace an aircraft carrier with a cruise ship," a headline at Popular Science said.

Lt. Col. David Berke, a former commander of the US Marine Corps' first operational F-35B squadron, told Business Insider the idea of upgrading a legacy fighter to do the F-35's job was plainly "preposterous."

Virtually everyone pointed to a single aspect of the F-35 that the F/A-18 lacked: stealth.

But the US and other countries already have in their sights a modern update on the F/A-18 that is meant to complement the F-35. The update may be poised to deliver even more capability than Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter in some areas, even without being as stealthy.

Dan Gillian, Boeing's vice president of F/A-18 and EA-18 programs, told Business Insider that even with the coming F-35C naval variant, US carrier air wings would still field versions of the F/A-18 into the 2040s. The company is planning considerable updates that will focus on "addressing the gaps" in naval aviation.

Gillian and the Boeing team call it the Advanced Super Hornet, a modern update on the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, which itself was an update on the original F/A-18 Hornet. Gillian says Boeing designed the Super Hornet "from the beginning in an evolutionary way with lots of room for growth in power, cooling, and weight so it could adapt to changes over the years."

"We have a legacy with the F-18 — on time on cost," Gillian said, which one could contrast to the F-35 program, which has faced constant production overruns in cost and time. In fact, a recent report says the Navy's version of the F-35 just hit yet another setback that could take years and billions to fix.

Gillian says Boeing could start fielding Advanced Super Hornets by the early 2020s at the latest, while some limited contracts to bring elements of the Advanced Super Hornet are already underway. So even though the designs of the F-35 and the F/A-18 reflect different missions, they certainly are comparable in terms of price, availability, and capability.

"When we talk about the Advanced Super Hornet package, it can be delivered to a build of new airplanes and it can be retrofitted to existing airframes," Gillian said.

"An airplane that I'm building today off the line has some systems that have matured over time that a Super Hornet would not have," he added, saying there would essentially be no difference between a 2017 Advanced Super Hornet and a Super Hornet plucked off an aircraft carrier and brought up to date.

The physical characteristics of a fully decked out Advanced Super Hornet would be as follows:

Shoulder-mounted conformal fuel tanks to carry 3,500 pounds of fuel and reduce drag. These fuel tanks could "extend the reach about 125 nautical miles," meaning the planes can "either go faster or carry more," according to Gillian.

An infrared search and track radar, which would be the first such capability included on a US fighter jet since the F-14 Tomcat. This will allow the Advanced Super Hornets to counter enemy stealth capability and to get a read on heat-emitting entities without emitting any radar signal of their own. "There was a fixation on stealth attributes," Gillian said of fifth-gen fighters, "which is an important attribute for the next 25 years, but tactical fighters are designed for stealth in one part of the spectrum, all planes emit heat."

Advanced electronic warfare capabilities. Currently, the F-18 family leads the US military in EW platforms with the Growler, an EW version of the Super Hornet in which Boeing has "taken out the gun and installed more EW equipment ... Instead of missiles on the wing tips it has a large sensing pods," Gillian said. The Navy has scheduled the F-35C to eventually carry the advanced EW pod, but the initial generation of F-35s will have to rely on Growlers for EW attacks. The Advanced Super Hornet will have EW self-protection, but not the full suite present on the Growler.

An advanced cockpit system with a new 19-inch display. Basically "a big iPad for the airplane, allowing the pilot to manage all the information and data that’s out there," Gillian said, comparing its utility to the F-35's display.

Improved avionics and computing power as well as increased ability to network to receive targeting data from platforms like the F-35 or the E-2 Hawkeye. The Advanced Super Hornet would also feature an improved active electronically scanned array radar.

Further enhancements still to be considered by the US Navy for Advanced Super Hornets include the following:

An enclosed weapons pod would make the plane more aerodynamic while also cutting down on the plane's radar cross section. Combined with the form-fitting fuel tanks, the Advanced Super Hornet could cut its radar signature by up to 50%.

An improved engine could increase fuel efficiency and performance. Boeing hasn't yet begun earnestly working toward this, and it could add to the overall cost of the project significantly.

Hypothetically, Advanced Super Hornets could field IRST before F-35Cs come online. Growlers will also serve in the vital role of EW attack craft, without which the F-35 cannot do its job as a stealth penetrator.

So while an Advanced Super Hornet will never be comparable to the F-35 in all aspects, it could certainly develop some strengths that the F-35 lacks.

Additionally, Gillian said the Advanced Super Hornets would not cost much more than the current F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, which run about $70 million apiece. Even if that price rose by $10 million, it would still be lower than that of the cheapest expected F-35s, which come in at $85 million.

"The Advanced Super Hornet is really a collection of systems and design changes that when implemented achieve a significantly different capability for the air wing," said Gillian, who stressed that the Super Hornet and Growler platforms were "well positioned" to improve in scope and capability over time.

Gillian made it clear, however, that the Advanced Super Hornet program had been, since its inception, meant to accompany the F-35, with carrier air wings consisting of three squadrons of Super Hornets and one squadron of F-35s into the 2040s.

The US Navy has contracts already underway to update its existing Super Hornet fleet with elements of the Advanced Super Hornet package, and it seems the US will end up with both Advanced Super Hornets and F-35s, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

The F/A-18, not designed with all-aspect stealth in mind, will most likely never serve as a penetrating aircraft for heavily contested airspace, but its future onboard America's aircraft carriers is well defined for decades to come.

But with Boeing's field record of delivering F/A-18 projects on time and on budget, and the US Navy left waiting by overrun after overrun in the F-35 program, the two planes are starting to look like apples and oranges — both good choices. Choosing which to buy and when may simply come down to what is available on the market.

NAVAIR has already said "no" to those upgrades.
I don't think they will ever happen.

To make the F-18 Superhornet "F-35 like" would take a major redesign of the existing electrical and avionics systems.

That's never going to happen.

And then there are other issues...

If they were priced the same or below current Hornets, they should build them. F35s for first strike, then these to clean up but still handle their own.

In A15.com terminology, why not both?

I remember drawing an F18 in my freshman high school drafting class. 1990 sure seems like a long time ago for a plane, but im not a plane guy so ill let yall tell me which is best.

I don't think you can say that categorically.

The article above specifically states some are already being purchased, and the link below specifically quotes navy officials as saying the USN will procure technology such as the IRST.

Will it ever be the green field Boeing has drawn? Probably not. But it seems clear that at least a few of the upgrades described previously will take shape in time.

Furthermore, I believe the broader point of the article is to point out that Boeing could provide something closer to an F-35 alternative, at least for the USN, if the demand was there.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/us-navy-wants-more-f-18-super-hornets-some-serious-upgrades-16947

I don't think the point was to come up with a practical replacement, but to indicate that no one manufacturer will be allowed a monopoly on the future of air-power.

I'm oversimplifying, but the F-18 isn't ever going to replace/equate to the F-35. No matter what they do to upgrade it.  Wasn't the intent of his question, IMO.

If I click on this nationalinterest.org link, is it just going to take me to an article that was lifted from businessinsider.com, or thereabouts?

im not crazy about that single larger screen.   no redundancy for a pilot to select a different screen like the A/B/C/Ds 3 smaller selectable screens 

Considering it was published more than 6 months before the businessinsider one, it's highly unlikely.

We will always need a High/Low mix

The big screen is pretty much standard on all of the latest stuff now. F-35 is the same, see below.

I've read some articles about this being looked at for other aircraft too, like the B1 Lancer and F-22

If only we had a kickass (as in baddest aircraft God has ever created) air-superiority fighter already, that is decades ahead of anything else.  

 

You are  not going to just drag those F-22 jigs out,blow the dust off them and stick on tailhooks on them.

New wings, new airframe, new engines, new avionics...

And it's going to cost less than a new jet.

Right.

It might work, not because it is magically better, but because we can afford it.

I would love a Mercedes G Wagon.  They are awesome and have sat TV built in for the kids, a wifi hotspot, and are awesome in every way.

In reality...I could buy a G wagon...and not be able to afford food.  

Maybe it is better that I buy a Toyota and have money left over to live on.  

Just maybe...something like the Hornet is good enough, when taken in conjunction with the other ways we can service various targets.

That just seems like common sense. I have no background in avionics, but I know mechanical
things fail that that is just asking for problems that have no solution and catastrophe follows.

This, and aren't they having to pull airframes from mothballs to replace the ones they've been crashing(no disrespect to naval aviation, but they've lost quite a few bugs in the last couple years)?  What about legacy bugs the Corps has?  How is this going to be cheaper and available sooner, I just don't see it but then again, I'm just a lowly Cessna driver, so whatever.

1) They made clear in the article that existing airframes can be upgraded to this spec.
2) There's a big difference in the hornets and super hornets. There aren't any super hornets in the boneyard to my knowledge.

This.

The finale product might look F-18ish but that would be more of a bug than a feature.

Pretty much same price but without Stealth and less capability.

JSF has been a bit of a boondoggle but starting over at this point is going to cost even more bucks and making the replacement aircraft resemble a legacy fighter is a dumb idea.

I am aware of the difference, and I don't think there are any super bugs in mothballs(might be but I doubt it), my post was more in reference to the lack of serviceable airframes.  If the Navy is having to reactivate legacy bugs to replace supers they're losing is this upgrade worth it or should they just tool up and build more super bugs?

Or is this upgrade directed not at the Navy, but Canada/Australia/Switzerland?

This line is completely true only if you ignore the F-35's EOTS and the F-15's Talon HATE project.

I say scrap everything and build 1,000 B-21s

Give them an air to air missile configuration, an ALCM configuration, an electronic warfare configuration and a gravity bomb configuration. 

Bombers! Big, beautiful long range strike bombers! Who would dare to oppose us? 

Sounds expensive.

I think this entire issue is about fielding a replacement for the legacy F-18s sooner than the F-35 program can replace them.  I can see current model Super Hornets being fielded for those Marine fixed-wing units as an interim solution.  But in the long term they will eventually transition to F-35Cs, but they wouldn't be trading in 40+ year old legacy Hornets for them.

And difficult to navalize.

The F-18 (any flavor) isn't the solution, it's the problem.  The capability lost when Dick Cheney shrugged his shoulders and said "fuck it" about what to do about replacement for the F-14, KA-6, S-3, and A-6 will take billion$ to unfuck.  We put 5k people and spend $13 bn for the ship to put airplanes in the air with about half the combat radius of what we fielded for decades, starting after WWII.  Stupid.

I'll bet there were boys drawing or doodling F-15's around 1973.

The add- on /  modification on the Super bug looks nice.  However, this information is given by "Dan Gillian, Boeing's vice president of F/A-18 and EA-18 programs".  Wondering though if this is just another sales pitch,  very much like the F-15 Silent Eagle which looks very promising...... on the paper.

All we need now is a rumor from a Navy or Marine GO on the verge of retirement about how badly they need new planes, exactly like the Advanced Super Hornet.

Airplanes are faster than boats, and with aerial refueling the bomber's reach would be unlimited. 

Okay.  How many tankers are you suggesting we need to support 1,000 bombers doing routine long range strike missions?

i wonder if in a few years they will do to the f-35.

what they did to the f-22.

That's what folks are trying to do.  Then when the F-35 is long closed they will suggest that we should reopen it to make more.

I also like the "early 2020s" to have this Super-Duper Hornet in operation.

The F35 cockpit was pulled from X-Com UFO defense?
Attached File

Attached File

You know too much.  Black helicopters are inbound.

Did none of you people watch Mattis' confirmation hearing?

The F-35 is going nowhere between Jim Mattis and the United States Congress.

Boeing should just take one for the team and build one.

Crap. Give me a minute while I throw up a plasma aa facility. Need research time though... 3 months work?

The ability to recreate the Cologne bombing campaign is essential to our national defense.

I'm all for the USN buying the super-duper-hornet instead of the F-35C just so I can see the day that the USMC flying jump jets off an amphib has the kick the door in first before the CVN can start striking targets.

I presume you're then in the ridiculous "there won't be anything between killing goat fuckers and using nukes" camp?

UFO-87
Detected
HYPER-WAVE TRANSMISSIONS ARE DECODED

SIZE................VERY LARGE
ALTITUDE.......VERY LOW
HEADING........SOUTH
SPEED............2560

CRAFT TYPE....Battleship
RACE...............Ethereal
MISSION.........Alien Retaliation
ZONE..............North America

Just the opposite. All we really need is the in-between above, be they launched from land or sea.

I will forever think that the skip-generation programs of the F-22 and F-35 are Soviet plots, though.

Then your post about the need for 1,000 bombers should be directed to the person who made the suggestion.