U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Alex Corona
Popular Mechanics: The Navy's Super Hornets Are Getting an Upgrade
The Super Hornet Block III will have improvement to allow it to fight alongside the F-35C for the foreseeable future.
The U.S. Navy and Boeing are working to update the service’s fleet of Super Hornet fighters to a new Block III standard while gradually updating existing planes to the new standard. The Super Hornet Block III will have improvements to the plane’s electronics, radar cross section, and range, allowing it to fight alongside the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter for the foreseeable future.
The Super Hornet fighter was introduced in the 1990s as a bigger, more capable version of the original Hornet fighter, now called “legacy Hornet.” As older aircraft such as the F-14 Tomcat and legacy Hornet peel off to that great boneyard in the sky, the Super Hornet has gradually come to dominate the flight decks of the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carriers, and today most of the Navy’s strike fighter squadrons fly either the F/A-18E, the single seat version, or the two seat F/A-18F.
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WNU Editor: Bottom line .... this upgraded F-18 will be flying with the US Navy for a long time.